


Spectral Dance

by DezoPenguin



Category: GrimGrimoire
Genre: Fantasy, Gen, Mystery, Spiritualism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-04
Updated: 2015-07-03
Packaged: 2018-04-07 13:34:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 17
Words: 53,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4265094
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DezoPenguin/pseuds/DezoPenguin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Bartido Ballentyne returns to his home country after being exposed as a spy at the Silver Star Tower, his biggest problem appears to be boredom. In search of something worthwhile to do, he agrees to a friend's request to look into a rising spiritualism movement that seems to call into question long-held assumptions of religion and magic alike.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

"Mama!"

The soft blue light bathed the dark room in its radiance.

"Sara? Is that you, Sara?"

"Mama! Ma..."

The light flickered and faded, dying out.

"Sara! Sara! No, my darling, don't go! Sara! Bring her back! Please, by all that's holy, bring her back!"

~X X X~

It was good to be home, Bartido Ballentyne decided. The misty highlands and heather-strewn meadows of Albion were where he'd grown up, and despite the way the months he'd spent abroad had seeped into his soul, it felt good to be back again.

His superiors, the men who'd sent him as a spy to the Silver Star Tower, weren't happy with his failure, of course. Bartido had infiltrated the Magic Academy and became Dr. Chartreuse Grande's apprentice to recover the lost Philosopher's Stone. Possessing it had made the Archmage Calvaros nearly capable of usurping control of his nation by magical force alone; it would have made Albion forever secure from attack or allowed it to build an empire to rival the long-since-fallen Imperium.

He hadn't been able to obtain the Stone, but he had been able to confirm its destruction, so he could at least reassure his employers that no one else would be able to use it _against_ Albion. That was something. And honestly, he preferred it that way. The Philosopher's Stome was too much power, more than anyone could be expected to bear. Human nature was what it was, and Bartido suspected there were more Calvaroses and Lujei Piches than there were Gammel Dores in the world.

That business was finished, though, and he was back home. He didn't mind the experience; while he hadn't accomplished his goal he had for the first time in his life gotten to test himself against a real-world situation, not an academic one, gotten a chance to see how he handled himself in a crisis, and had the opportunity to study alchemy under Dr. Chartreuse, one of the geniuses in the field.

 _The truth is_ , he said to himself as he strolled along the arching stone bridge that crossed the Avalon River, _I miss it._ Not the place itself, but the work—the idea that each day he was doing something significant and real, whether it was performing experiments that stretched the boundaries of alchemical knowledge or scheming to preserve his cover while hunting for a state secret. Somewhere he'd crossed the line from boy to man, and the everyday life of an Albionese gentleman seemed like a retreat from that.

 _Huh. I'm getting so serious-sounding that I might as well be Hiram._ His best friend at the Tower had been a good guy, smart and dedicated and honest, but frivolity and humor weren't really part of his makeup. He wondered how Hiram was doing, whether his budding romance with necromancy professor Opalneria Rain was working out. They'd probably do well together; she was damn hot, but a woman that intense and driven was so not Bartido's type. He preferred someone more fun-loving, with a sense of humor, but doubted Hiram would find Ms. Opalneria's lack in that area to be a flaw.

He wished he could write and find out, but somehow he figured that correspondence between an Albionese spy and the third prince of the kingdom—and hadn't _that_ been a shock?—wouldn't be viewed too kindly. Probably by people on either side.

Thinking of Hiram and romance made him think of Lillet Blan, another apprentice from the Tower. He'd had quite a crush on the pretty blonde witch, who was not only cute but quick-witted and witty, exactly the kind of girl he went for. He'd thought she felt something of the same attraction, but events had started moving fast before he could do more than flirt a little. And then he'd been sent home and she'd graduated—after she'd taken up with Dr. Chartreuse's pet project, the homunculus Amoretta Virgine. Though "taken up with" could have a lot of meanings, since after all "love" had a myriad of them and it was love in _any_ form that Amoretta needed.

Bartido wondered if he'd ever see the doctor, or Hiram, or Lillet, or any of the others from the Tower again. It all seemed so far away now, but he had a feeling that someday he would. The bonds he'd formed and the events they'd shared were the kind, he thought, that made a permanent connection between people, the kind that drew them back together over time.

He strolled on across the bridge, not really sure where he was bound, his path leading him towards a coffeehouse on the far side with the curious name of the Red Badger. He paused when he saw the sign, wondering just how the place had earned the appellation, when he heard a voice call out to him.

"Bartido!"

Bartido turned his head to see who'd called, and saw that the cry had come from a couple of tables away from where he stood.

"It is! Bartido Ballentyne, as I live and breathe."

Bartido broke into a grin as the sandy-haired young man his own age got to his feet.

"Michael! What's it been, three years now?" he exclaimed as he clasped his friend's hand in a firm grip. "I see there's been some changes," he added, plucking at the collar of Michael Carstairs's black cassock. "You stuck with the seminary, then? I was half-convinced you were going to quit and tell your father what he could do with himself."

"Well, that's what I thought at first, but after a couple of months something strange happened. The more I studied, the more I trained, the more I knew that this was the right place for me to be. I guess you could say that I felt the call."

Bartido and Carstairs had known each other since childhood. Their families' estates had run alongside, and they were both in similar situations, the younger sons of landed gentry, caught by the expectations of their class: "one for the land, one for the army, and one for the Church," as the saying went. Bartido had played off his magic studies to avoid having to choose between a lieutenant's commission on land and a midshipman's berth at sea, while Carstairs had been intending to leave the seminary for a life on the stage once he'd saved up a little money.

 _Funny how that worked out._ Bartido had ended up serving his country anyway, and Carstairs had ended up ordained. But then, there was a difference between a couple of fifteen-year-olds chafing at expectations and eighteen-year-olds who'd figured out at least some of what _they_ wanted out of life rather than only knowing what others wanted of them.

"That took some guts," Bartido decided.

"Eh?"

"To go ahead and do what your father expected of you. That had to take some courage to face up to that idea."

"That would have just been my pride talking—which it took me quite a while to admit, I'll add."

"But it gives you an example from life when you're delivering a sermon on the topic," Bartido countered, making his friend grin.

"There is that consolation. But please, join me for a coffee and we can catch up on the past few years. Unless you have pressing business elsewhere?"

Bartido shook his head.

"No, nothing at all. In fact, that was part of what I've been bemoaning lately, having entirely too much free time on my hands since I've gotten back in the city."

He let his friend lead him back to the table, and a moment later a buxom waitress approached, her dark skirt, frothy scoop-necked blouse, and cross-laced corset looking much like a barmaid's, only considerably cleaner. Bartido ordered an iced cinnamon roll with his coffee.

"So then," he said once the woman had retreated to the kitchen, "if it's the cassock for you, what brings you to the city?"

"I'm a curate at St. Helena's, just three blocks from here upriver. They're not fool enough to set pups my age loose alone on an unsuspecting parish."

"Or an unsuspecting parish loose on you," Bartido joked. "So you're serving your apprenticeship here in a neighborhood full of wealthy artisans and traders, then? That must be an easy billet."

"Maybe not so much as you think. You see, the well-to-do tend to be educated. Literate folk read scripture, not just have it preached to them, and sometimes they take it out of historical and spiritual context when they do. There's quite a few who have some interesting notions about what they read. It's nice to see people who think for themselves—in fact, it's vital, since if you're just obeying by rote, how can you say that you really understand the choice you're making between good and evil?—but too often I see people parsing Holy Writ like it was a literature study and ignoring the message entirely."

Bartido nodded.

"I guess I see what you mean."

The waitress returned with his coffee and cinnamon roll.

"Here you go, sir. One coffee and one sweet roll. Let me know if there's anything else you'd like." She flashed him a flirtatious grin and he smiled right back.

"I think I see something else sweet I'd like right now."

"Aw, get off with you," she said, blushing faintly.

"Well, I wasn't moving _that_ fast, but if you insist..."

She laughed, her blush growing, and spun back towards the kitchen.

"I gather by that exchange that you still have yet to fall in love?" Carstairs said dryly. Bartido grinned shamelessly at him.

"Nope. I thought that I was close to it, a couple of times, but no, not as yet."

"Just remember that lust is a deadly sin for a reason. It leads you into making foolish and shortsighted decisions as well as devaluing its object."

"You sound just like Hiram. Tell me, Michael, why is it that all my close friends end up being such sticks-in-the-mud?"

"To balance you out, of course. Moderation in all things, Bartido." Both of them laughed at that. "So who's this Hiram?"

Bartido sipped his coffee.

"A friend of mine from the Magic Academy. Good fellow, even though I don't think he'd recognize a joke if it bit him on the leg. Though I don't think the lady he fell in capital-L Love with would either, so they're pretty well suited."

"The Magic Academy," Carstairs mused. "So you kept up with your studies in that area?"

"Uh-huh." He paused as a thought hit him. "You're not going to start in on that, are you? A few words about my eye for the ladies is par for the course, but if phrases like 'witch-burning' start getting tossed around—"

"Nothing of the sort!" the priest interrupted, holding up his hands. "Blast it, Bartido, I found a vocation for the priesthood, not to be the village idiot!"

"Damn, I'm sorry." Bartido rubbed the back of his neck, feeling a little sheepish. "The priests back where I've been studying aren't so generous as the Church hereabouts."

The religious response to magic was by no means a settled matter, particularly as it started to come out into the open as a respectable and scholarly craft. Arch-conservatives considered magic to be the Devil's work, an absolute evil which had to be purged from the world, preferably by fire. More moderate clergy saw magic as being dubious, playing with forces perilous to a person's soul. The most liberal on the point saw magic as merely another expression of God's creation, which could be used for good or evil depending on the intent and actions of the magician. The Church in Albion tended towards the last attitude, though by no means had that always been the case.

"Apology accepted," Carstairs said, but his expression did not lighten. If anything, it became more serious; he drummed his fingers on the table pensively.

"I really am sorry, Michael," Bartido repeated, afraid that he'd wounded his friend more deeply than he'd first believed, but apparently that wasn't the case.

"What? Oh, no, that's not it. In truth, I was trying to think of how to ask you for a favor."

"What's so hard about that? The one thing I've got far too much of right now is time on my hands and nothing to fill it. What's that line, 'idle hands are the Devil's playground' or something like that? You should consider it your duty to give me something productive to do. Not to mention an act of friendship."

He took a gulp of coffee. He'd missed that taste while at the Tower, where tea was the standard hot beverage.

"You may not think that way once you've heard it," the priest warned.

Bartido shrugged.

"Maybe, maybe not. I'll worry about that once I _have_ heard it. Go on and tell me." He took a bite of his cinnamon roll.

"What do you know about raising the dead?"

Bartido tried not to choke on the roll, managing to swallow at the last minute.

"Can't be done," he forced out between crumbs.

"What?" Carstairs seemed genuinely shocked.

Bartido gulped coffee to clear his airway.

"It can't be done," he repeated. "Dead is dead. The natural order of life and all that. You want to start breaking the laws of nature, you need a miracle, not a magician." His gaze narrowed. "Michael, you ought to know that."

"But I thought magicians summoned ghosts and spirits all the time?"

Bartido blinked.

"Ghosts? Oh, is that what you meant? I'm sorry; you said 'raising the dead' and I thought you meant bodily resurrection. No, ghosts of various types are the basic work of necromancy, one of the four arts of magic."

"Why is that any different?" Carstairs asked curiously, momentarily distracted by the point.

Bartido chuckled.

"You're asking me? I'm a lousy necromancer. Alchemy's my best field. The simple answer, which is all I know, is that when a necromancer summons a dead soul, it's still dead. It comes from Purgatory into our world, but it's just moving around, not changing." He wondered if it would be possible to create an Amoretta-like homunculus with a deceased person's spirit as the core, to effectively restore a dead person to life, but even if so it would be granting someone a _new_ life, not resurrecting them into the old one. "When a dead soul inhabits or possesses a corpse magically, it doesn't make it alive, just the corporeal undead like a zombie or vampire."

"I see." Carstairs finished off his own coffee. "Well, in this case it is the spirits of the dead that we have to deal with."

Bartido nodded.

"A haunting?"

Carstairs shook his head.

"No, a spiritualist."

"I don't think that I know the word."

"That's not surprising. I think that they made it up. 'Spiritualism' is a kind of practice—I suppose you might call it a cult, in its way—that teaches that people can contact and communicate with the spirits of the dead. They say that death merely represents the ascension of the soul to a higher 'plane of existence,' whatever that means."

"Sounds like Heaven," Bartido commented offhandedly, hazarding another bite of his roll. The remark made his friend scowl.

"To the layman, perhaps, which is part of the problem. These spiritualists preach that on the Other Side, the burdens and cares, the human concerns of this world are shed. It's a rejection of the nature of sin, of free will, of the existence of objective definitions of good and evil. Much of the guidance is the same, but the underlying theology is completely at odds with Church teachings."

Now Bartido frowned. He wasn't the most religious person, but as someone who'd come face-to-face with devils, he'd be the last person to deny the existence of objective evil, evil that a person could choose to embrace or reject. A sorcerer who lost sight of what devils were soon found himself lost, seduced into darkness.

"As proof of their claims that they understand the metaphysics of life and death," Carstairs continued, "they say that they can put people in direct contact with the spirits of the deceased, to allow people to talk with their loved ones who have passed on. They hold 'seances' at which a 'medium'—their word for it—brings forth the deceased to manifest before them. You can imagine the effect this has on people who are grieving, lonely, desperate for solace that there truly is an afterlife."

"Proof as opposed to faith," Bartido noted.

"Exactly. So how do they do it? Is it a scam, a confidence trick based on the same principles as a sleight-of-hand performer uses? Or is it magic, necromancy? Whether their ultimate aim is a heretical cult, or to bilk innocent people out of their money, they need to be exposed as frauds."

"And you'd like me to do that?"

"Yes. You're a magician, after all. If this is nothing but a confidence trick, then with luck they can be exposed for it. If they are using necromancy to summon the actual spirits of the dead, then with a magician's knowledge you can show how it was done."

"I kind of hope it _is_ necromancy, in that case," Bartido said. "That's something that can be easily proven. If it's a different kind of trick, then I'd have to figure out their apparatus, which could get difficult. Still, hey, it's something to test my wits on." He grinned confidently at his friend. "I'm glad I ran into you. Until today I've done so little real living since I got home that it feels like you need necromancy to talk to _me_!"


	2. Chapter 2

"I tell you, Bartido, it will completely change the way you see the world! Open your mind to the tyranny of priest and pulpit!"

Bartido looked William Laird up and down. He wasn't the only one; the young man's own sister was giving him the same kind of looks.

"Exactly how much absinthe did you drink, Will?" said sister asked. At twenty, she was two years older than her brother, but they both shared the same olive complexion, rust-red hair, and ready smile.

"The two of you are nothing but sticks in the mud," Laird said primly. "I tell you, once you've experienced one of Madame Prosecco's seances, you will never see the world the same way again."

Bartido shared a look with Victoria Laird, openly grinning at the young man's assertions.

"Well, Will," he said, clapping his friend on the back, "you'll get the chance to prove what you say tonight. And making us eat our words will be fun for you, right?" As he said it, he winked at the girl, who smiled back. He liked Victoria; she was unattached and fun-loving. Bartido doubted that anything would go past flirtation; she wasn't _that_ careless of her reputation and he had a job to do. But that didn't mean he couldn't enjoy her company.

Especially when it was the work that had brought him into her orbit in the first place.

It was only a favor he'd agree to do for Michael Carstairs, but he thought of it as work anyway, just as if it had been an assignment from the Foreign Minister. After all, Carstairs had come to Bartido because Bartido was supposedly good at this. It was his professional skills that were called for, and he would use them.

That was what had led him to the Lairds. The spiritualists weren't hiding or secretive, but they were low-key, not advertising themselves in the broadsheets or anything so crass as that. It had been easy enough to find them, though. Attend a couple of the right parties, drop the right phrases into a few casual conversations, and he had the names of a handful of gentry who'd had encounters with or interest in spiritualism. Of those, he'd picked William Laird to approach because...

...Well, because he had a pretty, personable sister. But it wasn't strictly a question of the fringe benefits, although he was more than happy to enjoy their meeting. Rather, it was because by approaching Victoria as an interested man, he could work his way up into Laird's acquaintance without either of them knowing what his real goal was.

And just as expected, they were on their way to a seance. Three days of cheerful socializing and he was in.

The seance was apparently being held at a home in the Thumb, the district of the city formed by a U-shaped bend in the Avalon's course. It was an old district, the city center for centuries due to its natural defenses whether the current wave of invaders were ancient Imperial second sons carving out a colony, Lusatian vikings, Gallanese conquerers, or something else entirely. Albion had a long history of being invaded, then defeating its invaders not by military might but by absorbing them into the whole. As the rural saying went, "Barons come and go; the earth remains." Maybe that was why Albion tended to be friendlier to magic than some countries; in its way the Church was just another invader.

Religious fulminations weren't like Bartido, particularly not in the company of a pretty redhead. Probably it was because Carstairs was a priest, and matters of life and death naturally prompted thoughts of religion by their fundamental nature. In these shadowy streets where guttering torch lights illuminated ancient, ill-fitting cobblestones and the large, sagging ghosts of what had once been the townhouses of noble lords and wealthy traders, it was easy for such thoughts to surface.

Bartido grinned at himself. Truth be told, he loved it. The Gothic atmosphere entertained, and it felt very good to be _doing_ something again, not just lounging in coffeehouses and absorbing idle chitchat. His senses were alert and his energy up in a way they hadn't been in weeks; he'd been starting to feel as dull as the Charlie slumped in his watch-box they passed, the deep rasp of his drunken snoring a clear signal that the criminals he was supposed to be looking out for had free reign.

"Hope we two are escort enough for you to feel safe, Vi," Laird said, jerking a thumb towards the sleeping watchman.

"I think it's more that _you_ should hope we can watch out for you," his sister joked. "After all, we're not the ones who are seeing ghosts!"

Bartido shook his head.

"We should give Will a pass on that one. After all, I believe in ghosts, too. Indeed, I've seen them."

"Good man, good man...wait, what?" Will slurred, the thought having to catch up to him.

"Just what I said; I've seen ghosts before."

Victoria, with a clearer head, caught on first. She snapped her fingers to announce that the thought had struck and the sound echoed through the canyon of narrow streets and tall buildings.

"That's right; you're a magician, aren't you? You're talking about Necromancy."

"Oh, that's not the same thing at all," Will sighed.

"Probably not," Bartido granted, "but at least it does mean that I do accept the reality of ghosts, of the spirits of the dead summoned back from Purgatory."

Will shook his head. He was far enough in his cups that his body followed the lead and it made him stumble a bit, but he caught himself before falling.

"No such thing," he declared.

"As Purgatory?" Bartido picked the only point of the sentence he could imagine being challenged.

"Right! A bogey tale, nothing more. Something to frighten us into being good little boys and girls. Serves a purpose, of course. Still, can't let ourselves be duped."

Bartido had been more intrigued than righteously upset at the idea of spiritualism interfering with the Church's teachings. But it seemed there was more to it than just Carstairs getting his knickers in a knot over potential blasphemy, if someone like Laird could come away from a seance asserting that basic concepts of afterlife theology were wrong.

"What do you mean, duped?"

"All that hellfire-and-brimstone stuff. Bad form, really. Folks ought to know better than dip into that."

Victoria looked past her brother at Bartido and shook her head.

"He's not even clear about it when he's completely sober," she said, "so don't blame the innocent alcohol."

"Deuced hard to explain metaphysics of life and death and all that. Go on and listen to Madame. She can explain it properly." Laird wasn't self-conscious at all about it, taking it as perfectly natural that he couldn't give a concise explanation. As a sporting gentleman he wasn't a scholar and couldn't be expected to be one, he'd probably have said if asked.

"Besides, this is it. Number 14." He stopped and gestured up at the house before them.

"On the surface, there was little to set Number 14 apart from the other buildings around it. The glass in the lamp kept burning at the side of the door was intact, and the front steps had been swept clean of dust and mud. A brass nameplate threw back the lamplight in gleams from its polished surface, saying only _Prosecco, Spiritual Counselor_.

Laird took the ring in the iron lion's mouth and knocked three times. The door was opened by an elderly man in severe but threadbare black livery.

"May I help you?"

"M'name's William Laird. We're here for the seance."

"Come in, please."

They gave their cards to the butler, who showed them into an anteroom. Bartido had expected the decor to remind him of the presence of death—dark velvet hangings, dim candlelight illuminating skulls, a somber atmosphere of gloom and sorrow. It seemed, however, that this was not the case; perhaps spiritualism was unlike Necromancy and did not run to the morbid. Or it had nothing to do with either art and Opalneria Rain just had creepy personal tastes which colored Bartido's assumptions.

But the antechamber was actually decorated with subdued good taste in light colors, albeit inexpensively. It was the kind of room one would have expected from a middle-class professional of some kind.

Three other people were already present when they entered, a well-dressed couple in late middle age and a sharp-featured gentleman of around thirty-five with curling brown hair. This man rose from his seat upon the arrival of the new entrants and smiled, extending his hand.

"Good evening, my friends," he said. His handshake was firm and strong, the kind that implies an open and forthright character, and yet Bartido was reminded of nothing so much as a clean-shaven version of Advocat, the devil teacher from the Magic Academy. Maybe it was the slightly antique look of his clothing, with lace instead of loose fabric at the cuffs, or maybe it was the open, frank expression and the handshake. These were things Bartido had been taught to mimic to help win people's trust.

Or maybe he just didn't like the look of the man.

"I am Domenic Prosecco; welcome to our house. Mr. Laird, how good of you to join us again. This lovely young lady would be your sister, then?"

"That's right, Victoria. And this is m'friend Bartido Ballentyne." He leaned forward and whispered in a tone that was nearly as loud as his speaking voice though probably not meant to be, "Skeptical fellow, him. But Madame will set him to rights soon enough."

Bartido grinned, and was surprised when Prosecco met his smile with one of his own.

"You are not the first skeptic to visit us," he said amiably. "The explorations we perform here are new. They challenge established beliefs, ways of thought that have endured for centuries. We do not pretend to know all there is to know of the spirit plane. We are but travelers, drawing the veil aside the tiniest bit to give us a glimpse of what lies beyond. All we ask of you is that you give us the chance to show what is possible."

"So you don't mind that I'm not a true believer?" One of the most classic excuses of charlatans and snake-oil dealers when they couldn't perform their alleged magic or miracles under close scrutiny was that the presence of unbelievers disturbed the necessary forces, created a disharmonious atmosphere, or some similar rot. That kind of talk was the surest proof of a phony. Real magic came from natural laws created by God, and worked with the same immutability as gravity pulling a stone to the earth.

"Of course not. All we ask is that you allow yourself to keep an open mind and accept the evidence of your senses. After that, the truth will take care of itself. But let me introduce you to your fellow guests. These are Mr. Edward Guinness and his wife Francine."

The middle-aged couple and the young trio made the necessary introductions.

"Is this your first time attending one of these...explorations?" Bartido asked, using Prosecco's term for it.

"Oh, no," Mr. Guinness replied. "We have been here several times."

"It has been such a comfort to us," his wife added. "To be able to speak with our daughter again after so long, to know that she is happy even if she cannot be with us..."

"I see..." Bartido responded neutrally, but the gentleman only gave him a benign smile.

"Oh, I understand, young friend. You need not be careful for fear of offending me. Indeed, I was at first a skeptic as well. But you will see the truth for yourself tonight, and then you will understand."

"I certainly hope so. My friend has promised me a rare experience tonight."

"It is not some entertainment!" Mrs. Guinness hissed sharply. "It is a sacred matter, touching on the mysteries of life and death!"

"Now, Francine," her husband said, taking her hand and stroking it as if gentling a horse. "He means no harm by it, and cannot be expected to know."

"And the pain of losing a loved one..." Victoria began, then broke off and shook her head. "It's not something anyone can see the depths of without experiencing it. Seeing it second-hand isn't enough."

The red-haired girl's words had surprised Bartido; her attitude so far had been irreverent and critical of the experience. So why was she now suddenly full of gentle sympathy, a complete sea change from her previous manner? It was impossible to miss, though, the connection that passed between the older woman and the younger.

Bartido glanced at her brother, but Laird only gave a quick shake of his head, as if to say "not now." Since a serious look had flashed on his face to do it, Bartido set the matter aside for the moment. Anything important enough to push through both Laird's jovial mood and the absinthe's effect had to be handled with care.

"I'm sorry if I've offended," he offered, trying to smooth things over. While the strategy of tossing a rock into the fishpond and seeing what splashed up wasn't necessarily a bad one, in this case he was pretty sure that the splash would be him getting the heave-ho before he'd even started. Carstairs wouldn't be impressed by his friend's so-called espionage skills, then!

"It is only that you cannot understand how important this experience has been for us," Guinness assured him. "Our daughter, Sara, she was taken from us over twenty years ago. She was only six."

"That must have been awful," Victoria said.

"It was indeed. The measure of that loss..." He broke off, shaking his head, and clutched at his wife's hand. Clearly, it was not only she who'd felt the depth of that pain. "For years we have carried that wound within us. But now, thanks to Madame Prosecco's abilities, we can at last know peace, be assured that Sara is safe and happy where she is and even be able to have her with us again, however fleetingly."

"Then the spirits of the dead truly do come back at these seances? You can see them and speak with them?"

"Of course," Laird said. "Anyone can wave a hand around and _claim_ the dead are there. What Madame does is real, it's powerful."

Bartido glanced towards Prosecco, who had watched the entire exchange silently thus far. There was a smile on his face, not a smirk but simply a benign expression without a trace of smugness. If he was acting a role, he was doing it well.

At the side of the room a curtain rustled, and what Bartido had taken for closed drapes were pushed aside, revealing an open archway rather than a window. The woman who emerged was tall and stately, in her mid-thirties. Her features were slightly aquiline, putting Bartido more in mind of a sculpted Madonna than a carnival fortuneteller or a hedge-witch. When she spoke, she had only the barest whisper of an accent to suggest anything at all foreign or exotic about her.

"Domenic, everything is prepared. I am ready to begin."

"Thank you, Addeline. I am sure all our guests are eager."

She inclined her head in acknowledgement.

"It is good to see you again, Mr. and Mrs. Guiness. I hope that we may once again have success tonight. And Mr. Laird, this must be the charming sister I have heard so much about."

"Victoria Laird, Madame Prosecco," the girl introduced herself.

"It is a pleasure. Your brother's good heart I already know, and I can tell already that you are cut from much the same cloth as he is. And who is your friend?"

"This is Bartido Ballentyne," her husband was the one who made the introduction this time.

"Charmed, I'm sure," Bartido said, bowing over her hand. Madame Prosecco chuckled.

"I think perhaps it is you who is used to doing the charming, Mr. Ballentyne. I hope that Domenic shall not have to keep a close watch upon you."

"I'm sure that Mr. Prosecco has to keep a close watch all the time." He glanced at Laird and added, "You didn't mention our hostess was such a captivating lady."

"Really, Bartido," Laird said, rolling his eyes. But Bartido thought the act worth it if he could fix the impression with the Proseccos that he was nothing but a society fribble out for a good time. (Now, flirting with _Victoria_ , on the other hand, that required a different kind of acting, to hold back from making any serious advances while he was working. After the business was resolved, perhaps...)

Prosecco cleared his throat, drawing everyone's attention.

"If I may, I daresay it is time to begin. The hour of midnight grows near, when the planes of the living and the dead draw closest." He gestured to the archway, and his wife took the first step in that direction.

She froze, though, when the door was thrown open.

"So! About to try another of your games, are you?" a young man's voice cried. "Well, you'd better be prepared, because it's going to be the last one of these tricks you play!"


	3. Chapter 3

"Tobias, what are you doing here?"

Surprisingly, the sharp-toned rejoinder came not from either of the Proseccos, but from Edward Guinness. There was nothing soft or retiring about his voice; rather, it was forceful and challenging.

The young man did not back down, either.

"You know very well why I'm here, Father: to keep you from wasting your money on these charlatans!"

Quite frankly, Bartido didn't think that Tobias resembled his parents very much. His hair was pale, almost blond, while theirs was gray, and he had soft features and a plump build, almost running to fat, compared to their lean angularity. It took a second look to realize that the young man was actually in his late twenties rather than around Bartido's own age; his features had an almost unformed quality that seemed to shave years off.

"You shame yourself with your cupidity, boy," his father shot back. The immediacy with which he'd suggested a motive meant that either this was a long-standing argument or the relationship between the Guinnesses was troubled. The former was the more likely, given the boy's willingness to make a public row out of it.

"And you with your credulity."

"We are not credulous. We have seen Madame Prosecco summon forth your sister's spirit. You have not so much as attended a séance, and yet you have the arrogance to dismiss our experiences out of hand because they are not convenient for your purse."

Tobias's chin quivered in apparent offense.

"I care nothing for the money, but for a natural desire to spare you from squandering it on criminals."

"The only criminal act here tonight," Prosecco spoke up, stepping forward, "was committed by you in forcing your way into my home. I would prefer not to embarrass your parents by having you taken in charge, but if you do not take yourself off without further ado..." His nostrils flared in anger, showing a temper he'd previously given no sign of possessing.

"Pardon me," said a second man coming into the room behind Tobias, "but I think we would all be served by reining in our tempers and letting cooler heads prevail."

The newcomer's voice was certainly the kind that suggested control over emotion and a cool head. Indeed, it was hard and stern, the kind that suggested a general, a king, or a particularly exacting professor. As a matter of fact, the last of these was the closest to the truth: Bartido recognized the short, slightly stooped figure, the thin face dominated by a narrow but large, hooked nose like a raptor's beak, the blackwood cane capped with an etched silver knob at once.

"Master Dundee," he said, bowing slightly.

"Oh? Young Ballentyne, is it? I'm surprised to see you caught up in this foolishness. I thought you were abroad."

"I was, up until a few weeks ago." Bartido was astonished the other man remembered him at all; he'd never met Nathan Dundee socially or studied under him directly. That Dundee not only remembered who he was, but details of his career was remarkable.

"You know this fellow, Bartido?" Laird asked curiously.

"He's one of Albion's leading magicians, our acknowledged master in the art of Necromancy."

"Exactly!" Tobias crowed. "And he's here to reveal the tricks by which you've been cheating my parents," he shot his challenge at Prosecco. Another exchange of insults was broken off, though, when Dundee struck the ferrule of his walking-stick sharply on the floorboards.

"I am here," he stated, "because of the things I've heard from this young man and others concerning the purported summoning of the dead. As Mr. Ballentyne has already observed, by magical specialty is the study of that field, and the claims that spiritualist practice put forward are of great interest to me."

And that explained that. Just as Carstairs had sent in Bartido to investigate, so had Tobias brought Dundee as his expert. Frankly, he couldn't have made a better choice. Like Bartido had told his friend, this matter really called for an expert in Necromancy, and Dundee was _the_ expert, at least within Albion's borders. Practically speaking, Bartido would have put his skills on par with those of Ms. Opalneria from the Magic Academy, though he wasn't nearly as decorative.

Prosecco didn't look happy at all about the intrusion.

"Our explorations are not a carnival show to be gawped at by a crowd of thrillseekers. We are sincere men and women seeking to find the true guiding path that leads through life and death and all the stages of the universe."

"Then as such you should welcome observation and the presence of reputable witnesses."

"I see only a young man who begrudges his parents the comfort that can be brought to them, as well as the—"

"Domenic." It was only one word, said softly and gently, but Prosecco fell silent at once. His wife stepped through the crowd to stand before the magician. "Please forgive my husband, Master Dundee. He seeks only to protect his wife from the insults of those who would accuse us of being fakers or frauds."

"I freely admit, madam, that my expectations are not high in that regard. The things you claim to do and the metaphysical underpinning for them runs counter to religious teaching and magical practice alike. I can't claim expertise in the former, but I have devoted my life to the latter, and in this particular field besides, so I think I can claim good authority for my doubts. But"—he held up a hand to forestall Prosecco from interjecting—"I'm not willing to condemn without evidence. I've lived long enough that I've lost count of how many times the established explanation for something has been wrong."

Unlike Tobias, there was no rancor in Dundee's voice, little emotion at all. He laid it all out as plain fact.

"I see." A knowing little smile played around Madame Prosecco's lips, as if she found it all terribly amusing. Maybe she did. It reminded Bartido a little of when his mother would listen solemnly to something he or one of his siblings thought was deeply important but that was ultimately trivial from an adult's perspective.

It was kind of a disquieting thought. Addeline Prosecco was coming off as something not unlike a pagan mother-goddess: patient, wise, gently ushering her worshippers forward towards eternal truths as they were ready to accept them.

He wondered if she meant any part of it, or if she was merely a very good actress.

"Then you have no objection to my observing?" Dundee confirmed.

"None at all. We welcome any seeker to our explorations, so long as they do not seek to interfere with the proceedings." Her eyes slid meaningfully towards Tobias.

"You expect me to just stand by while you blind my parents with yet more of your nonsense?"

Dundee struck his cane on the floor again.

"Boy!" he snapped. "You brought me here because you wanted to consult my expertise. Is that or is that not so?"

"It is." _Truculent_ described his response well.

"Then calm yourself and permit me to exercise it in such manner as I see fit."

"I'm not sure whether to feel sorry for him or not," Victoria murmured under her breath, so that only Bartido, standing next to her, could hear.

"I know what you mean." Was Tobias motivated by greed—a pampered son of the gentry watching the inheritance he already thought of as being his slip away? If so, right or wrong about the spiritualists, he was contemptible. Or was he an honest son worried about his parents? His anger could have been solely at the evil he perceived to be at work, and at his own frustration. Guinness's accusations might be coming not from a sound assessment of his son's character, but in response to the attack on his faith. It was impossible to determine just yet.

One thing that the conflict between the Guinnesses did reveal, though, was a facet of what the Proseccos were doing. Tobias might have been greedy, or not, but the fact that they were arguing over his greed told Bartido that money was changing hands somewhere along the way. The spiritualists' talk was in terms of faith, opening ways, inspiring changes in the perception of life and death, but somewhere along the way they were taking in hard coin.

Which wasn't to say that they were necessarily running a con, as legitimate groups needed money for their work, but it was a solid reminder for the young man to keep himself from paying too much heed to Madame's manner.

Tobias huffed a bit, like a hen with ruffled feathers, but gave in with bad grace.

"Very well, I'll hold my tongue, but only so that you'll have the best opportunity to show these frauds up for what they are."

"Please accept our apologies for this, Madame," Mrs. Guinness spoke up. "I'm terribly sorry for this disruption. And bringing in a direct challenge to your honesty like this. You should not have to be put on display like...like some specimen in an alchemist's laboratory!"

"Do not worry," Madame Prosecco reassured her at once. "It is none of your doing. And if Master Dundee is as fair-minded as he says, then your son's intervention will be the vehicle only for good in the end." The necromancer's eyebrows went up at this rather provocative remark, but he said nothing. "But now, we should forbear further conversation and begin. The propitious hour is passing quickly, and we want to lose none of its time."

No one, not even Tobias, saw a reason to challenge that remark, and they let her lead the group through the curtained archway into the next room.

In contrast with the rest of the house, here at last was the unusual décor Bartido had been expecting. The séance chamber was windowless, whether by original design or adapted for the purpose by the new owners. He suspected the latter, from the dark wood paneling that looked relatively new. There was only one source of light: a cut-glass lamp hanging from a chain in the room's center. Directly beneath the lamp was a round table, covered in an elaborate purple brocade tablecloth embroidered in gold with stars, planets, and other symbols of the kind one might find on a wizard's robe. More gold made a fringe around the edge with occasional tassels, while eight chairs ringed the table.

"We are nine tonight," Madame observed. "Domenic, if you would please bring another chair?"

"Is it going to be a problem, having an extra person?" Guinness asked. "If it will disturb the spirit emanations, surely one of us should wait outside."

"I thank you for your concern, but it is not at all necessary," she reassured him. "The number of seekers present should have no bearing on the outcome."

Bartido was reminded of his earlier thought about how charlatans would often protest that a disturbance or negative atmosphere would disrupt whatever it was they were trying to accomplish. At the least, the spiritualists had passed that test.

Prosecco returned, carrying one of the chairs from the anteroom. It matched those already surrounding the table, straight-backed and with a cushioned seat but no arms. The irreverent thought struck Bartido that they must have bought in bulk to outfit the room with extras in case they were needed, before realizing that the seats were probably just taken from the house's formal dining room. Perhaps that had even been the original purpose of this room and the large table.

"Come, let us sit," Madame invited, and they sat. To her right was placed Mrs. Guinness and then her husband. At her left hand was William Laird, next to him his sister, and Bartido beside Victoria. Tobias had been placed next to Bartido, followed by Dundee, and finally Domenic Prosecco at Guinness's right. Prosecco had closed the curtain when making his second entry into the room; he now before taking his seat reached up and turned down the lamp's wick, plunging the room into shadow. A theatrical setting, Bartido thought, but also one suitable for summoning the presence of the dead.

"Everyone, please join your hands upon the table with those of the person next to you," Madame instructed. Victoria's hand was soft and cool in Bartido's, while Tobias's was slick with sweat, perhaps with nerves at what was about to happen, or what he could lose if this gamble did not pay off for him. "Whatever occurs, you must not break the circle. We are joined as one will, one purpose, a single strong beacon sent into the by-ways of the other side, to draw to us those with whom we would speak. If that unity is broken, then our beacon is scattered, no longer shining as one, and the séance will fail."

Tobias shifted in his seat, and Bartido could tell that he wanted to say something, but he mastered himself and kept silent.

"We are reaching out, calling into the unknown future that lies ahead for us all," Madame Prosecco continued to intone. "We are seekers after truth, looking into the divide between planes. Our hearts are open and yearning. There are those here who are lost and searching. Those in need of comfort, those who feel the sting of loss. We ask that you come to us, that our call reaches out to you who have passed beyond the veil, that you would hear and come to us for a time, that we might feel your presence."

Bartido's eyes flicked around the circle of faces, taking in those whom he could see. Eyes closed, Madame had the bearing of a priestess, her manner little different than if she was performing a sacred rite. She looked so expectant, it was easy for him to start to believe a little, to think that _something_ unusual was about to happen.

Surely the Guinnesses could feel it: their faces were rapt, caught up in an almost dreadful eagerness. It was the look of a drunkard watching a waitress carry a bottle to his table, that fierce, desperate sense of _need_ that went beyond mere desire to become a thing as essential as air. Bartido wondered if William Laird now bore a similar expression, if he too had something to find here that was of such importance to him.

Prosecco, for his part, looked merely interested, with only faint traces of satisfaction to disrupt the whole. He might not have been as good an actor as his wife, or it was simply his character. Certainly, he showed no trace of nervousness or fear at being put to the test by Dundee. The necromancer, for his part, merely looked on impassively, showing no sign of what he might be thinking—though it was possible the look did in fact reflect what was going on in his mind, a cold and unemotional absorption of the facts.

For all of them, the flickering of the low light cast weird shadows across their faces, outlining them in stark relief, sharply emphasizing what was there, giving unnatural life to what Bartido saw. He couldn't help but to wonder what, if anything, lay bare upon his own face.

"We beseech you, o spirits of the departed; those who loved you and cared for you in life are calling out. Come back to us. Follow our call back to this mortal plane."

The lamp flickered and guttered as if it caught a wind, sending crazy shadows racing around the table. Bartido could feel a heaviness in the air, a pressure throbbing against his temples. It wasn't spellcasting the way he knew it, but there was something there, something present in the atmosphere, vaguely familiar, even.

Bartido's time at the Magic Academy had accustomed him to the presence of power. It wasn't just the direct force of magic and Runes. It was something different, the aura that people like Gammel Dore or Advocat or Lujei Piche projected around them. Particular places had it, too, even objects, and he could feel it there at the séance table, the gathering of force, the idea—the _certainty—_ that something was about to happen.

And then it did.

It was there all at once, floating in the air above the table, not in its exact center but to one side, directly in front of Madame Prosecco. It was a dancing cloud of flame, a will-o'-the-wisp the pale blue of St. Elmo's fire playing about the rigging of a ship. Within the fire there were spots of a slightly different shade, making the hinted outline of a face.

In short, it was a ghost.

Creatures such as this were the most basic of necromantic familiars. Bartido himself, though his skill at Necromancy was very little, knew how to summon them from the Hades Gate Rune. So the ghost's presence was not by itself remarkable, other than that it proved that genuine magic rather than pure trickery was at work.

What _was_ remarkable, though, was the fact that to all apparent purposes, there had been no magic. No Hades Gate Rune had been drawn, nor did its telltale glow shine forth. And while Bartido's knowledge of ritual Necromancy was virtually nil, he would be willing to bet that even Dundee, with his vast expertise, would not have recognized the séance performance as being any kind of magical ritual.

He could feel his heart racing, his blood pounding. If he was to try and put a name to his feeling, it would have been exhilaration. The utter thrill of taking action, of having a genuine problem to confront and solve excited him. _How was she doing it? What was her purpose?_ And if that purpose was malign, how could he stop it?

"Spirit who has come to us, please reveal yourself! Show us, as we who seek your guidance, the way forward. Bring hope and comfort to the ones who love you!"

In response to the medium's command, the outline of the ghostly figure wavered, shifted. It elongated slightly, then began to resolve itself into an image, a translucent Astral figure with defined features and identity. Bartido had been expecting a girl, from what the Guinnesses had been saying, the spirit of their lost child. But this was not a child, rather, it was an infant, a baby. Drifting over the table, it turned directly to face Victoria Laird, gurgling happily, a smile plain on its face.

"Ah!" she gasped, her hand clenching on Bartido's.

It drifted closer, its glowing hand extending towards the girl.

"Is...is it really you?" she whispered in a voice unlike any he'd yet heard from her.

The spirit did not answer, but only moved closer.

"Are you...are you happy where you are?"

The infant gurgled again, and laughed. Its hand brushed Victoria's cheek in a gentle caress.

"I'm so glad," she sighed, her voice thick with emotion. "I'm so glad."

The ghostly infant cooed again, drifting back from the young woman.

"Wait! Don't go! Please...please let me hold you, just once..."

"Do not break the circle!" Prosecco instructed at once, but it was too late. Victoria had already pulled her hands free from Bartido's and her brother's, but the moment she reached out for the spirit it faded away, vanishing.

"No! Don't go..."

"It is too late," Madame said gently. "The spirit has returned to its plane."

"That's...that's all right," Victoria said. She plucked a wisp of cambric from her sleeve and dabbed at her eyes. "This was more than I had ever imagined. Thank you, Madame. And you too, William, for bringing me tonight."

"Do you feel well enough to continue, Miss Laird? It would be easier to continue with the same circle that began our exploration, but I understand if you need some time to yourself."

"No, I'm all right. I'm...I think that I'm more all right than I've been in some time."

Bartido wasn't at all sure that he could say the same.


	4. Chapter 4

Restoring order to the proceedings after the ghost's appearance wasn't quite as easy as all that, of course. Nearly everyone present had been affected in some way, not just Victoria and her almost exalted state. Laird was obviously solicitous of his sister, holding her hand, but there was a smile on his face, too, sharing her happiness. Bartido wondered if this was the reason he'd encouraged her to come, if some of his happiness was at a successful plan.

Nathan Dundee's hawklike features showed no emotion or concern, but rather the opposite; he'd grown _more_ intent, his attention and focus written even more plainly on his face. Doubtless he was trying to figure out what had just happened, how what to all appearances had looked like and to Bartido's mage-sight _felt_ like a ghost could have been conjured up without Runes.

That wasn't to say that Runes were necessarily required for summoning spirits. All a Rune was was the condensation of a spell, the substitution of carefully calculated symbolism for chants, gestures, and physical reagents such as one might find bubbling in a hedge-wizard's cauldron. But as he'd thought before, the séance procedure clearly didn't fit with any ritual necromancy he'd ever heard of. With his much greater experience and practical knowledge, Dundee might know more, but since he wasn't declaiming loudly that the Proseccos were frauds it didn't seem like he had any more idea than Bartido.

There was another method of producing a ghost by magic. A familiar could be summoned and bound in advance, creating a talisman that could call them forth. It was a common technique among skilled magicians, to give them a quick defense when circumstances didn't give them an opportunity to create a Rune (it was the same reason, in fact, that Bartido stayed in training at fist-fighting; being handy with his fives was handy against someone waving a wand at him). If Madame Prosecco had such a talisman, she could have conjured up the ghost without any specific pomp and circumstance.

That still didn't answer all the questions Bartido had, though. And with her hands held, manipulating such a talisman would have been difficult, albeit not impossible. Somehow, he didn't think the answer was that simple, and he doubted that Dundee did, either.

But he didn't have any more time than that to consider the problem, because the group was joining hands again, ready to renew the séance. Victoria Laird seemed to have regained her composure and he was glad of it; the girl had been badly rocked by the experience. It was plain that some story lay behind it all and most likely it was a tragic one.

Probably he'd have to find out more about Victoria's background if he was going to put the events into some kind of context. That was the part Bartido hated most about spying. Solving puzzles, fighting his country's enemies, and ferreting out secrets were all exciting and fun, but he hated it when he had to pry into things that people had a right to keep private. He hated it even more if he had to use those things against them.

Madame had once again taken up her chant-like invocation, calling out to the spirits of the world beyond to answer their call. The atmosphere seemed different than it had a few moments before; while then there had been curiosity, a patient waiting for what would come, now the air was heavy with expectation. _Or maybe it's just me,_ Bartido amended his thought. _The Guinnesses probably felt like this all along._

Whatever the extent of those feelings, though, their expectations were answered. Once more the blue fire of a manifesting spirit took shape before Madame Prosecco, and it too began to shift and change as it drifted towards the elderly couple. Bartido didn't have a good look, being behind the apparition, but it seemed to be the image of a child, with long hair tied back by a ribbon and wearing a loose-fitting dress. The ghost's form lost resolution just below mid-thigh, merging into a trail of flame.

"Mama! Papa!" The voice was high-pitched, roughly that of someone around six years old.

"Sara!" sobbed Francine Guinness.

"Are...are you happy, Sara?" her husband said in a stricken voice.

"Of _course_ , Papa," the ghost-girl said, then added with a trace of petulance, "You _always_ ask that."

Bartido barely stifled a chuckle, and Laird actually got half of his out before he cut it off. But despite the humor, it was impossible to miss the _naturalness_ of the reply. It was something that a child _would_ say. A little girl wouldn't respect the solemnity of the occasion; she wouldn't even think about it.

Particularly if she really was coming back from the other side of the grave.

"We're sorry, darling. It's just that we worry so much about you. To see you like this...we miss you so much."

"I miss you too, Mama. But everything is so full of light and peace here. I was so scared when I was sick, but now nothing hurts. I can go wherever I want, and there's never any pain, and no one gets mad."

The ghostly figure turned, and Bartido could see that her face did indeed match her voice in terms of age. She floated towards Tobias, her expression growing sad.

"Tobin, please don't be so angry." The "o" sound in "Tobin" was a short vowel rather than the long o that was in the man's name. Apparently that meant something, because he gasped when he said it, before she even finished the rest of her sentence. "I don't like seeing you fight with Mama and Papa. I know you love them and want them to be happy. I wish you could see what it's like here. When I was where you are, I thought lots of things were scary, but now I know it's just an il-lu-sion." She said the last word slowly, like she really was a little girl sounding out a difficult lesson.

"I...I...I can't believe it!" he recoiled. "You can't be Sara. This is some kind of trick!"

He yanked his hands free and lunged for the ghost, no doubt intent on seizing hold of cheesecloth "ectoplasm" or whatever he assumed would be the deceit used. Instead, his hands plunged right through the glowing blue image. He gave a sharp cry of pain as the ghost vanished, falling back into his seat as if thrust into it.

"Guinness!" Dundee cried in alarm. He turned to the young man, rising out of his chair and made a quick examination, holding his ear close to Tobias's slightly parted lips and raising one fallen eyelid with his thumb.

"Is he all right?" Bartido asked.

"No, he isn't, and he won't be unless we can get him to drink this." He fished out a small stone bottle, its stopper covered with red wax, from beneath his robes.

"My God! Tobias!" his father gasped, while Mrs. Guinness just gripped her husband's arm with both hands.

Dundee broke the seal and tugged the stopper free from the vial.

"Ballentyne, hold his head steady."

"Right." Understanding what was to be done, Bartido tipped the young man's head back, holding it with his left hand while using his right hand and his own body to keep Guinness's body from slumping out of the chair. Dundee pried the ill man's mouth open and forced the bottle inside, dumping the contents down his throat.

Whatever the potion was, it worked fast. Dundee came up sputtering and coughing almost at once. Color began to come back into his ashen cheeks as he wheezed for breath.

"What...what happened?" he coughed out when he had regained something of himself.

"You had a very close call, young man," Dundee was stern. "Making physical contact with a ghost can be extremely dangerous. While their Astral forms cannot generally affect the physical world, it is possible for a ghost to expend the magical energies of its vessel to injure a target."

"Vessel—? I don't..."

"What we call a ghost is in fact the soul of a dead person brought back from Purgatory and given an Astral body created from mana to inhabit. It is that mana which is expended in an attack. Since this of course expels the soul back into death, ghosts generally do not do this unless they have a strong grudge or purpose or are commanded to do so by a magician who has summoned them as a familiar."

"Sara couldn't have had had any kind of grudge against Tobias," Mrs. Guinness protested. "She was a sweet child who always loved her older brother!"

"Remember," Madame pointed out, "that he tried to seize her. Doubtlessly he believed that there was some form of trick being practiced, but she could hardly understand that. All she could sense was his hostile, violent intent, and she lashed out in self-defense at her attacks. I yield to Master Dundee's superior knowledge of the technical details, though I strenuously argue with his use of a term like 'Purgatory' to describe the next plane. The world beyond is not a place of cruel punishment, sir. You have heard the child's testimony for yourself. It is peace and enlightenment that await us, not more suffering but its surcease."

"Bah!" The necromancer stamped his cane upon the floor. "Do not seek to debate theology with me, madam; I will have none of it. I am no priest to contest the fine details of matters beyond this world."

"But you should do so. That is the purpose of these explorations, to look beyond the door to the next world and find out for ourselves what lies there, rather than passively accepting the stories that we are told by those who have a strong motive to make us accept their version of things."

"It's lucky that you had that vial with you," Bartido changed the subject. Carstairs had clearly been right, at least about the spiritualists preaching things that ran contrary to conventional religious teachings.

"The majority of necromantic attacks against the physical work by directly attacking the life energy of a living being. I customarily carry a potion to stimulate and restore this vital force in case of accidents during my own research."

"But what of Sara?" the elder Mr. Guinness put in. "If her body was destroyed when Tobias tried to attack her, then has she, too...?" He couldn't quite bring himself to finish the question in words, but his meaning was plain.

"You need have no worries," Madame Prosecco told him. "Her true self, her soul, has suffered no harm other than being made to return prematurely to the next world. Even Master Dundee bore that out in what he said."

"Aye, that's so."

"Then please, Madame, call forth to her again," Mrs. Guinness pleaded.

"Our time with her was so short."

The medium hung her head.

"Alas, I cannot. The circle has been disrupted twice now, and to reestablish it would be more than I believe I can do. Moreover, Sara's spirit has been frightened and it will be difficult to coax her back for some time."

"How long?" the elder Guinness said.

"I cannot say with certainty. The spirits of the departed do not measure time as the living do. They are not rooted to a fixed schedule of days or hours."

"Perhaps if the offending presence is removed, she will feel more comfortable?" he asked, staring at his son.

Madame sighed heavily and shrugged. Her arms seemed heavy, the gesture that of a woman who'd had to expend a great effort.

"I cannot say; it may be so. But that is a question for our next circle. The propitious hour fades, and I am not able to go on." She pressed her fingertips to her right temple. "To have the circle broken while the spirits are present is much more draining then when they are permitted to go on their own."

"I'm sorry," Victoria said.

"Do not be, child; it was only natural. This was your first such encounter, and I think it would take a strong will indeed to stand fast in such a circumstance. As for young Mr. Guinness, while I cannot be as well-disposed towards his actions, they have brought about their own punishment and I see no need to say any more. Domenic, if you would please show our guests out?"

"Of course, my dear." Prosecco rose from his chair. "Ladies, gentlemen, if you would?"

No one made any protest. Tobias wobbled on his feet a bit, still weak from the after-effects of the attack he'd suffered, and no one spoke until they reached the anteroom.

"On behalf of my wife, I must thank you all for your participation in this night's explorations. They have been, I think, a bit less enlightening then we are used to in an intellectual sense, but I do hope they have managed to bring some comfort, at least."

"They have indeed, Mr. Prosecco," Guinness told him. "I only hope this can help in some small way to repay your wife for what my son's recklessness put her through." He handed over a small leather bag whose contents clinked appealingly.

"You are most generous, sir," Prosecco said, though the comment was more formula than based in fact as he didn't count the money or even glance at it before slipping the purse into his coat. Laird passed over a few coins himself and Bartido saw the glint of gold.

"For my sister and my friend; they're m'guests, after all."

"Thank you as well, Mr. Laird."

Bartido's eyebrows went up in feigned surprise.

"There's a fee? I thought this was a learned demonstration, not a stage show."

The elder Guinnesses turned angry gazes on him, but Prosecco's calm wasn't shaken one whit.

"It is customary for those who join us to make a donation, to help defray the costs of our ongoing researches. It is nothing more than that. And, after all, don't you magicians charge fees for your services as well, when you sell your amulets and philtres?"

"I'd think this sort of thing was a little different than the village hedge-witch, but I suppose you have a point." He considered saying something a bit more cutting, to try and provoke a stronger reaction from the man, but when he saw Victoria shoot him a glance of worry, he let the moment pass.

He wondered, though, how much the "donation" was. At a glance, if Laird's payment was standardized, it appeared to be a sovereign a head, a price that would buy a box for a party of six at the theater, so it was high for an evening's entertainment. Still, it was hardly the kind of money that would drain the income of a well-to-do family beyond bearing, even if the Guinnesses were to come several times per week. No, if there was money changing hands it wasn't just in entrance fees—and the earlier exchanges between Tobias and his parents had pretty well proven that there was indeed money at the root of this somewhere.

"Oh, he's different than a hedge-witch, all right," Tobias had picked up for Bartido. "A hedge-witch at least sells honest magic, while these frauds—"

"Boy!" Dundee snapped. "I would hold your tongue, if I were you."

"What, you think being attacked like that is going to make me just kowtow to these people? I'm made of sterner stuff than that, I'll have you know, and their threats—"

This time both his parents' voices rose with Prosecco's in protest of the charge, and even Laird spoke up with a "Here, now, that's going a bit too far!" but it was again Dundee who silenced the voices.

"Excuse me," he said, cutting neatly through the hubbub. He hadn't even had to significantly raise his voice; just like before the clear, precise tone drove through the clamor. "Before you make any further accusations," he said into the sudden silence, "I think you should hear me out. After all, boy, you asked me to come here tonight to observe what I could. Don't you think you should hear what those observations were before you go further?"

"Indeed, Master Dundee, we would all be interested in what you have to say," Prosecco said. This time his aplomb was not what it had been; there was a definite trace of arrogance in his voice.

"Firstly, it is undeniable that what we encountered in the course of the séance tonight were genuine ghosts. There is no question of that; any magician could tell you the same. Ballentyne, there, for example, can easily confirm that."

Bartido nodded.

"That's true enough."

"Second, and more significantly, they were apparently called forth without the use of Necromancy, either by Rune or ritual. I say 'apparently' because there ways around even this that a clever magician could employ—not an accusation, just a statement of fact, Mr. Prosecco, so you can spare us the affronted defense I can see quivering on your lips. That noted, as I said, I did not see any such methods put into effect. I am not aware of whatever force it was that caused the two ghosts to be summoned.

"Thirdly, and most important, we saw those ghosts take on specific forms. There are ways to summon the ghosts of specific persons; it is not common but not impossible. That being said, to do so is among the most difficult tasks in Necromancy, requiring a specially crafted Rune for each such summoning, and generally required to be done in the presence of the spirit's corpse. To do this under these circumstances, not once but twice, and without any trace shown, is something I am convinced would be utterly impossible to do with magic."

"Then you're telling me—?" Tobias said.

"I am. What we witnessed here tonight was a true summoning of the souls of the deceased, and I am at a loss to explain how it was done."

The look of triumph on Domenic Prosecco's face seemed to carry in it all the pride of Lucifer.


	5. Chapter 5

It was perhaps half past one when Bartido and the Lairds exited the Proseccos' house into the quiet night air. In the country, it would have been the dead of night, but in the capital the evening was still going strong. Even the most respectable balls would commonly last until three in the morning, and the serious rakes would not stagger home from the brothels and gaming hells until dawn was lighting the sky.

The narrow streets of the Thumb, though, were still and quiet, with wisps of river fog beginning to drift through the by-ways, and what sounds there were were muffled by the tangle of high, close-set buildings. A good place, Bartido thought, for the mystery of magic that wasn't magic and the snarl of emotions that made up families.

Dundee's pronouncement had not fallen happily on the ears of the young man who'd brought him to the séance. Tobias certainly wasn't ready to casually accept that the spiritualists had actual powers to bring back the ghost of his dead sister, and the fact that Dundee's quick action had saved him from serious injury or perhaps worse did not so easily overcome the boy's greater goal.

Bartido didn't blame him, really. He found the idea hard to accept, as well.

"That was...something," he said. "I have to admit, Will, you certainly weren't lying about the experience."

The other man nodded firmly.

"Indeed! You'd never think it, but the things the spiritualists are learning—well! It's a whole new way of seeing the world!"

"I...certainly cannot deny that it was not what I expected," Victoria said.

"I had no idea that kind of thing would happen," her brother assured her. "Really, Vi, I'd never have brought you without preparation had I known." Which seemed to settle the issue of whether he'd planned things in advance.

"No, no, you needn't apologize. It didn't upset me—oh, what am I saying! Of course it upset me, but...not in a _bad_ way. I only wish there had been some warning beforehand. I'm not sure one can really prepare for something like that, but...it would have been good to have the chance to try."

"I'm deuced sorry for it; if there'd been anything I could have done..." He shook his head, then straightened. "If you ask me, after all that, we need warmth and conviviality. A glass of something at the Cafe Royal would suit that purpose, I think."

Victoria pursed her lips, thinking, then shook her head.

"I'm sorry, Will, but I don't think that I'm up to it tonight. You should go along without me."

"I can't just leave you to head home alone. T'isn't the thing at all to walk through the fog without an escort."

"Bartido can take me home," she said, then turned to him and said, "Unless you need more gaiety and good cheer than I feel up to providing."

If he took that one way, there was a barb in it, but he didn't think that had been her meaning. And at this point, he felt Victoria had more to offer his inquiry than her brother could provide.

That and she was an attractive young woman who was at least somewhat in need. Some things went beyond goals and missions.

"I'd be honored to see you home, Victoria."

Laird looked at the two of them dubiously for a moment, and Bartido thought that he was about to change his mind about his own plans and go along with the two of them, but his sister cut him off.

"Go on, Will. I'll be fine, and you know that you were right about yourself. You _do_ need a stiff drink and the company of people who are so focused on being alive that what comes after death is just an afterthought." She made a little shooing motion.

He hesitated a moment longer, then broke into a smile.

"Thanks, Vi. I'll see you at home."

He turned and walked away down the street, his boots clicking off the cobbles with his rapid steps.

"Shall we?" Bartido offered, gesturing down the street. He gave her his arm, and she slipped hers through it.

"Yes, let's."

They ended up following Laird for the first block, before Victoria indicated with a tug on Bartido's arm that they should turn. The silence lingered for another block after that before she finally spoke.

"I suppose you're wondering why I asked for your escort instead of Will's."

"Well, I thought that either you wanted companionship or you didn't."

"That...seems to cover the possibilities."

"Yes, I suppose it does. What I mean is, you might have wanted me because I'm not your younger brother, and I don't know the story of what happened in your past. Sometimes, it's a lot easier to be around someone who doesn't have a key to your heart."

"It sounds like you know a little something about that."

He smiled easily at her.

"Well, I think every young man knows a little something about being comfortable around someone without emotional intimacy."

"Dolt," she laughed, and shoved him playfully on the shoulder.

"See, you're feeling more comfortable around me already!"

Victoria chuckled with a little shake of her head, as if in disbelief at how silly her escort was being. He wanted a couple of seconds before pressing on.

"The second idea was, if you didn't want my lack of knowledge to be with someone who didn't know the story, then you wanted it so you could tell the tale to someone, go through the whole thing on your terms."

Somewhere nearby a dog barked several times, the sound diffused and spread out through the mist so it wasn't obvious where it had originally come from.

"You're more perceptive than I gave you credit for."

He shrugged.

"I don't have any knowledge or opinion, so you can go through whatever parts of it you want to in your own way, and not feel pressed. Plus, since you owe me nothing, you can say exactly what you want to and no more."

He actually wanted to hear more of Victoria's story than just what _she_ wanted to tell; he was interested in learning the whole thing. But he knew better than to come out and say so. This was one of those situations where the resistance would only grow stronger the harder he pushed at it.

Victoria gave him a long, measuring look, as if wondering what his true feelings were.

"I'm sure that you've already guessed part of it."

"Guessing a woman's secrets isn't my place," he lied shamelessly, since that was pretty much exactly what he did personally and professionally alike.

"That's a chivalrous falsehood," she said. "Anyone as comfortable with women as you, Bartido Ballentyne, knows all too much about their secrets. You wouldn't be anything like as good a flirt if you didn't."

But she was smiling as she said it, and a moment later she began the story.

"There was an unsuitable man, of course. There always is, in stories like mine. I was fifteen at the time, too young and silly to know better." She gave a mocking little laugh. "Listen to me. Here I am, a year shy of being an adult legally and talking like an old lady, with the wisdom of a generation or two's experience."

"Some lessons it only takes once to learn?" Bartido suggested.

"Maybe that's it. In any case, it's one that I learned well enough, the difference between infatuation and love. He was the second groom on our estate, and I thought he was absolutely wonderful: strong, rugged, powerful. He was taciturn with people, but kind and gentle with the horses, and I thought that meant that he was a man whose emotions ran strong and deep. Actually, it meant that he was a simple fellow without a lot to him, but you couldn't have told me that then."

"So you fell for him."

She nodded.

"I made up my mind that he was the one for me, and I was determined to do what I could. He wasn't the type to cast eyes at the daughter of the manor, so I had to resort to cunning. I 'borrowed' the dress of one of the parlormaids who was about my size, and I slipped off to the May-fair dance in the village. I looked for him, I found him, and after a few dances, a few glasses of ale, he did what came naturally with what he thought was just another willing village girl."

A girl's maidenhood wasn't considered as serious a matter among the lower classes in Albion, probably because the question of inheritance didn't enter into the analysis. The choice of yea or nay was left to the young woman's own will, with little thought about how social or religious strictures might come into play. Bartido was honest enough to admit to himself that he'd been happy to learn that pretty Lillet at the Tower was a country peasant by birth for exactly that reason, even though nothing had come of it.

"So your seduction was successful." He wasn't at all surprised at that.

"It was, and honestly, that part of it was everything I'd hoped for, especially since I was under the impression at the time that I was sharing an exalted moment, spiritual and physical love become one, rather than infatuation and lust. Unfortunately, that was the only part that fulfilled my hopes. We fell asleep in each other's arms, with me dreaming of how in the morning I'd reveal my identity and we'd run away together.

"Instead, we woke up, I revealed my identity, and he ran away by himself."

"Was he frightened of the consequences?"

She nodded.

"My father isn't a particularly harsh man by any standard, but under the circumstances, a groom with the daughter of the manor, I can see why the risk might not seem worth it. He fled the village that very day, and I haven't heard of him since.

"Of course, my romantic dreams were shattered then, both by his abandonment but also because he obviously didn't feel for me what I did for him. And, of course, in those days I was painfully naïve about the sort of precautions a girl can take to prevent herself from catching a babe out of a coupling. It only takes once, after all. Perhaps it's a bit ironic, as I've heard that May-fair started as a pagan fertility rite that was stripped later of any explicit religious content."

Bartido nodded.

"I've heard that, too. Though I don't think there's anything to it, I mean, that there isn't some ritual Glamour being unknowingly performed that magically increases the chance of pregnancy."

Although now that he thought about it, he wondered if there might be some truth in the idea that such "natural" magic might in fact be involved, increasing fertility or perhaps just heightening sexual desire (which itself would already be enhanced by revel and alcohol). It was really a question for an expert in Glamour, though.

He managed to suppress a chuckle at the thought of asking Professor Gammel about such an idea. Victoria would not have taken it the right way at all.

"Oh. Do you know, I hadn't even thought of that."

Bartido nodded.

"When I was studying at the Silver Star Tower, one of my professors talked about how some pagan rites are really magical rituals. Superstitious people got the supernatural effects confused with miracles—I figure that's easier, too, when your gods aren't supposed to be all-powerful—and adopted them into their worship." He grinned and added, "Our priests aren't the only ones who get the wrong ideas about magic, sometimes."

"That's interesting," she said, before lapsing into silence once more. It was no surprise, since this was likely the part of the story that caused her the most upset. Bartido was weighing whether or not to prompt her when she spoke up on her own.

"I sometimes wonder...if it was my fault."

This time, he was sure it wasn't his place to speak.

"If he hadn't abandoned me, I'm sure I would have wanted the child. It would have been the proof of our love, part of the romantic fantasy—which I'm sure tells you that I was in no way ready to be a mother. But in the aftermath of what actually happened, that dream wasn't there to cloud my head. I was terrified; I'd just gotten used to the idea that my infatuation only was that, and had started to think about my future again, and suddenly there was this. I was afraid of the future, I was selfish and resentful, I thought of the coming child as nothing but a curse."

"You didn't—?" He struggled with finding a way to say this delicately. As it turned out, he didn't need to. Victoria understood him well enough.

"Try to lose the baby?" She shook her head. "No, I didn't. Honestly, I'm not sure I would have even known where to begin. But more than once I prayed for it. I'd go to sleep begging God that when I woke up in the morning it would all be a bad dream. Of course that never happened."

She led them down another turn, one that led to one of the numerous bridges that crossed the Avalon. Though they were emerging from the narrow streets of the Thumb, the fog was still everywhere, a soft gray blanket that concealed the city's shadows. There might have been a dozen other people crossing the bridge or lurking in its nooks and crannies, but they were no more than faint ghosts in the mist.

"My parents had made arrangements for the baby. Once it was born, it was going to be adopted by a couple in exchange for a fee, all very quietly and discreetly. Only, when the day came, there was no need for that. The labor was difficult and the child was stillborn. When they told me, I just seemed to fall apart. I mean...I know that God doesn't answer those kind of prayers but I couldn't help but feel guilty, as if my wishes had somehow brought it about."

She let out a deep sigh.

"I don't even know if it would have been a boy or a girl. When the midwife told me that the baby had been born dead, I fainted from the shock. My parents...they simply didn't care, so only the midwife ever knew."

Victoria let a long moment pass by before she turned her head to look at her escort directly.

"Do you think it's strange, Bartido? That I could be so comforted by a vision of an unborn child's spirit?"

"I don't think so. Powerful feelings call for endings, after all. You want to see things properly finished."

She nodded.

"For the first time, I can really stand here and say, 'it's over.' I was so happy to know that my baby was all right in the next world, it was as if a huge weight had lifted off me."

"If you don't mind me pointing it out," Bartido said, "you don't seem as happy ever since we left the Proseccos' house."

On the river below them, they could just make out through the fog the prow light of a small boat as it emerged from beneath the bridge.

"Partly, I think it's just the aftershock of such a strong feeling. It has an effect, after all."

"Mm-hm."

They walked on for a bit.

"You said 'partly,' though?"

"It was that young man, Tobias Guinness, and what happened to him. How odd, come to think of it, that I called him 'young.' I mean, he must be nearly a decade older than I am, and yet he feels almost Will's age in my mind."

"He isn't the most mature fellow. Though these circumstances don't show him at his best, I'm sure," Bartido allowed.

"I guess so. Anyway, when the first ghost was called, it all seemed so pure and simple: we sent out our call and the spirit of my baby was drawn to me, to offer the comfort it could sense that I needed. But with the Guinnesses, there were arguments, violence...Tobias could have _died_. Then there was Master Dundee, making his pronouncements like he did."

"But he actually seemed to be supporting the Proseccos, even though Tobias called on him to expose them as frauds."

"I know. It's...okay, this is going to sound silly, but it's not what the answers are, but the fact that questions are being asked at all."

"I'm sorry?"

She smiled ruefully at him.

"I thought it sounded strange. It's a feeling like...once when I was visiting the Royal Gallery, I was enjoying a painting, a recently discovered lost masterpiece, when the man next to me stated talking about how the painting was a forgery. One of the museum staff overheard, and immediately leapt to counter the accusation. An argument started, and it quickly became obvious that the claim the painting was forged was just a rumor, one of those silly 'secret truth' stories lots of people like, chock full of nonsense. But it still ruined my enjoyment of the painting, because I couldn't help but think of the argument when I looked at it.

"The séance was a lot like that."

"I think I get it now."

"And it's worse, because we _don't_ know, not for sure. Everything felt so right and perfect while it was happening, but now I don't know what to make of it all. Was that really the ghost of my baby, come to tell me that I have nothing to feel guilty for? Or were the real ghosts the ones in my memory?"

"Does it really matter?"

Victoria stopped in her tracks.

"Does it _matter_? Bartido—"

He held up his hands quickly, seeing the flare of temper coming and not wanting to be caught in the blast. She'd been cool and introspective during the walk, but apparently she also lived up to her hair color.

"I just mean, well, it's not really a question of what happened to the unborn child's spirit. Its fate is whatever was decreed by God. I can't answer that question, and neither you nor I have any control over it—or _did_ have any control over it. Whatever was going on in your head at the time, it had nothing to do with the baby being stillborn. That's just a tragedy. You knew that in your head—but for one brief moment back there, you knew it in your heart as well. Only then you got confused by all the fighting and arguing as to what was important."

"Bartido—"

"Look, I don't know if that was your baby's spirit or not. Hell, Master Dundee couldn't figure that out and he's a lot better at this than I am. It would be nice if it were true, but what you need to carry with you is what you realized about yourself. Now that you've felt it, I don't think it'll be that hard for you to get it back."

She looked at him for a long moment, then broke into a wide smile.

"Maybe you're right, at that. And it isn't like I've been tormenting myself for years over it all; it's more something that comes up now and again when I see or hear something that reminds me of what happened. So maybe now I can properly put it to rest."

"Not as something to forget," he said, "but as a clean memory, instead of something that haunts."

She quirked an eyebrow at him.

"Really, Bartido? 'Haunts,' you said?"

He winced.

"Sorry; I didn't mean to make a pun."

Victoria gave him a quick little grin.

"All right, I'll let you off the hook this time. You know, you surprise me, Bartido Ballentyne."

"I do?" He didn't know what she was about to say, but he knew that regardless of the actual words, it was always a good thing when an attractive woman looked at him with that kind of cunning, playful little grin.

"When Will introduced us, I took you for someone shallow, a bored young gentleman with an eye for a pretty face."

"Well, since I'm here with you right now, the evidence suggests you were right about that last part." _And given how I was feeling before Carstairs asked for my help, she's not far off on "bored," either._

"Your flattery's pointless; I'm already trying to compliment you."

He returned her grin.

"Oh, well, in that case go right ahead."

"And now we see _why_ I thought the way I did. But you're actually a really good listener. You saw right to the heart of what was bothering me."

"I only wish I could understand any of the rest of this spiritualism business. There's just too many questions."

"The charming Madame isn't so easy to read as I am, then?"

"It'd take a better imagination than I've got to picture her trusting me with any of her secrets the way you did. Nor do I think there's any chance that if I knew any of those secrets, I'd think they were anywhere near as clean and innocent as yours."

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

Bartido saw Victoria as far as the other side of the bridge, where they were able to find a hired carriage still on the prowl for gentlemen and ladies who'd been out and about in search of one or more of drink, gambling, or sex, the usual pastimes of the well-to-do and bored.

It was on the tip of his tongue to invite her on to some more conventional entertainment for themselves; she was pretty, personable, and sharing the story of her past had helped bring them closer. He had a feeling that she, too, was on the verge of the same, of reversing their course to join her brother and their friends at Cafe Royal or the like. But if he was right, she let the moment pass, and so did he.

After all, this was work, and spending time out on the town with Victoria Laird wasn't exactly the kind of thing Carstairs was asking him to do.

So after dropping Victoria off at her home with a goodnight bow and kiss on the back of her hand which won a giggle from the lady, Bartido turned his course to somewhere that was not exactly in his usual style.

"Driver, St. Helena's church, in Eastbank."

"Pretty girl like that, whatever sins you've got to confess, I bet they were worth it," the driver joked.

"I only wish," Bartido laughed, "but worse the luck, I'm only going there to talk to a friend."

The jarvey, it seemed, was a philosophical man.

"Well, some days is like that."

"That they are."

Getting into the church wasn't a problem, as the sanctuary was kept open all hours for the benefit of the faithful in need. St. Helena's being a well-to-do parish, they even kept a watch in case material greed should outweigh the fear of spiritual retribution for some light-fingered supplicant.

Fetching Michael Carstairs out of bed was also one of the porter's duties.

"Is this absolutely necessary, Bartido? You don't particularly look like a man currently having some kind of spiritual crisis right now that desperately needs me in my official function."

Carstairs looked like a man who'd just been roused from bed ought to look: tousled hair, red-rimmed eyes still bleary with the last vestiges of sleep, his robe and collar slightly askew as if they'd been hastily thrown on over whatever he was sleeping in, which they probably were. Priestly vestments weren't only the appropriate garb for his official duties, but also faster to toss on than ordinary clothes.

"Nope."

He pinched the bridge of his nose, looking very much like a man longing for the old days, when warrior monks were sent out by the Church and encouraged to vent their righteous wrath on any magician they encountered.

"Still, I assume that whatever it is is important and can't wait until morning?"

"It's reasonably important and while it could wait until morning without hurting anyone it would be inconvenient and delay the next steps of my investigation until tomorrow afternoon."

Cartairs yawned.

"I suppose there's a point there."

"Really, Michael, it isn't that late. Even a priest shouldn't be keeping country hours in town."

"He should when his duties begin at eight in the morning. We can't all be magicians, poring over ancient grimoires until the dawn, then not rising until afternoon." Carstairs stopped suddenly, then blinked. "No, that doesn't work as a comeback; I literally cannot imagine you in that scene."

"I'll choose to take that as a compliment, though it probably wasn't one."

Carstairs gestured towards the nearest pew.

"Let's sit down, then, and you can tell me what you need."

"The first thing you need to know," Bartido said as he sat down, "is that there's definitely more going on than just carnival tricks and snake oil. I attended a séance tonight, held by one of the most popular of the mediums, Addeline Prosecco. There were real ghosts that appeared, not just some trick."

"So magic is involved, then. I'm glad that I asked for your help."

"Magic? Well, there's the question." He gave Carstairs a quick narration of what had happened at the séance, his friend looking thoughtful and a little worried.

"Nathan Dundee...I've heard of him. They say the Crown even calls on him now and again."

"Right, and he went a long way towards verifying that what we saw was really what it looked like. Frankly, he went farther than I would have; if he'd said any more it would have come out sounding like an official endorsement of the Proseccos and their methods, which I just don't get at all. Of course, the kid was just stupid, so maybe he was just slapping him down the way he would to an apprentice who'd embarrassed him in public or stepped on his toes some other way." He paused. "Victoria's right. There I go, calling Tobias Guinness a kid even though he's got to be about a decade older than me."

"That is interesting that he should strike you that way."

"Yeah, he just doesn't come off well. But even if he's not the most prepossessing guy—or even if he actually _is_ just a greedy slug who doesn't want to have to work a day in his life—it doesn't mean that he's wrong. But Master Dundee wasn't wrong either. Those were real ghosts, and I have no idea how they were summoned."

"So what does that mean? If the spiritualists can do this kind of thing, it challenges our afterlife theology directly. The fact that they called the ghosts is one thing, but what the second one, the little girl's ghost actually _said_ is another matter altogether. Only the will of God can let a soul return from Heaven—or be freed from Hell—while magic is capable of reaching just those souls in Purgatory."

Bartido drummed his fingers on the hard back of the pew.

"I'm more interested in the technical details than the spiritual, honestly. But then, I'm an alchemist by trade, and Alchemy deals with the rules that run this world, not the next."

"Bartido..." Carstairs chided.

"Sorry, Michael, I didn't mean to be flippant. Well, only a little bit flippant."

"Joke if you like, but this is a serious matter for me."

"I understand that. And I'll be frank, while I don't like everything that comes out _of_ the mouths of your fellow churchmen, I think that replacing a sound spirituality with mindless groping doesn't work well for anyone."

"It's more than that. It's classic when you study the histories of the more notable heresies. It begins by spreading doubt, sometimes caused by natural chaos—war, famine, pestilence, whatever upheavals make people fear that God could never allow such a state of affairs if He actually existed, either at all or just in the way that the Church teaches. Or if that doubt does not already exist, they work to create it, as these Proseccos seem to be doing. Then, they sell their answer. The coin changes, be it money, power, or just the narcissist's pleasure at being bowed to, but it's all the same in the end. These Proseccos are just another example."

Privately, Bartido's sympathies weren't always against the heretics. Ongoing theological debates over various points, the Low Church/High Church split among the clergy of the kingdom he'd just left behind, scandals when the princes of the Church had gotten too involved playing princes of the earth, they all showed how human nature, human feelings, kept the purity of God's message clouded by cultural biases and personal interest.

He didn't mention any of that, though. Carstairs was obviously sincere, and his point wasn't the supremacy of the Church, but the opportunists and predators that attacked it.

Some spiritualists might be sincere, too. Certainly, the Guinnesses and Laird were genuine in their belief, and people like that might well do exactly what the Proseccos claimed, experiementing to see what they could learn of the world beyond death. _Hell, more power to 'em._ But the Proseccos themselves, no. He didn't trust them, didn't believe in their sincerity. To Bartido, it felt like an act. Their roles were too pat, their manner too unshakeable. They weren't devotees, not even fanatics. They were peddlers, selling their breed of theology.

"Well, one thing I do know is that if we can't figure out how they're doing it, they're just going to keep gaining adherents and draw people to the movement."

"It must be Necromancy," Carstairs declared. "If the ghosts are real, and between you and Master Dundee I can't see a mistake there, then there has to be some magic bringing them into the room."

"That's the point I keep getting stuck on. I have to figure out the mechanism." He paused, then skipped over a few links in his chain of thought to ask, "Are the Guinnesses members of your parish?"

"Yes, they are. Why do you ask?"

"They fit with the kind of people you described, and you'd mentioned that was how you'd found out about the spiritualists in the first place."

Carstairs shook his head. Obviously, he'd been brought fully awake, his mind functioning clearly now as his question showed.

"Sorry, I didn't mean it in the sense of 'how do you know?' but 'why is it important?'"

"I was hoping you might know some background about them, their son and this Sara."

"Is that important?"

"It might be. I keep coming around to the biggest problem I have with this scenario, the one thing that I can't follow."

"Which is?"

"I can make a guess as to how they summon the ghosts, if they're using Necromancy. I mean, yeah, I didn't actually see anything, but that doesn't mean it didn't happen. Like...maybe there's a necromancer in the cellar under the séance room and he or she summons the ghosts there, then has them float up through the floor under the table, then up through the table." Even as he said it, though, he realized he was on the wrong track—the ghosts had materialized above the table, not up through it. "The point is, with a little creativity I can come up with possible scenarios that _might_ be what happened. A cunning person could find a way.

"But what I can't get past is that they somehow were able to summon up specific spirits. That's Witch of Endor stuff." He grinned and added, "Ms. Opalneria said that a lot of priests think she actually summoned a demon in that story, not the prophet's spirit, and that it's the more likely explanation from a magical standpoint."

Carstairs nodded.

"I've heard something of that debate in the seminary. A number of commentators on those passages in the Scriptures believe the Witch of Endor was indeed a sorceress, though their arguments generally focus on the spiritual aspect, not the magical. Others suggest it truly was the prophet, and his appearance was a true miracle, not the witch's work."

Bartido chuckled.

"Good to see you put those years of study to good use. Though I suppose a seminary isn't much like a secular university as far as spending your days chasing wine, women, and song."

"Hence the reason you never attended?"

"A palpable hit! Seriously, though, I was hoping to solve that problem by seeing what I could learn of their story. One baby looks much like another, especially under the right circumstances, but the girl was different. And unlike in Scripture, she was definitely a ghost, not a devil in disguise, which is the value of having a couple of magicians as witnesses."

"I see what you mean."

"So...can you give me any help?"

"I'm not sure, but I'll try. The family is gentry, no title themselves but a branch family of House Exbridge. There have been a couple of knights, a minister or two in the family tree. Mrs. Guinness's father was in trade, a shipping nabob."

It was a typical combination, new money and old blood, although the pair of them had apparently built affection between each other to judge by their mannerisms.

"They had two children, a son, Tobias, and a daughter, Sara, who was a year younger than her brother. You'll note that their eldest is a bit young compared to his parents; it's rumored that they tried for a number of years to have a child and had almost come to believe that it would be impossible for them. Thus, they treated their children as treasures and were very doting parents."

"A bit too doting, to judge by the son."

"He has a reputation as a dilettante," Carstairs agreed. "Though that's hardly different from most eldest children of wealthy families, whose 'work' is to be the heir, to learn to manage the estates and holdings. Look at our own families."

"You have a point. Most eldest sons are judged by their hobbies: sportsman, scholar, artist, man-about-town, gamester, rake... So what's Tobias Guinness?"

"As I said, a dilettante. He is not known to excel in any particular area, nor overindulge in any particular vice. In a novel, he would be one of the hero's two or three friends that he spends time with between adventures."

"And Sara?"

Carstairs shook his head.

"I don't know many details. Apparently it was a tragic carriage accident over two decades ago."

"Before either of us were born. Were her legs crushed by the wheels?"

"What? I'm afraid that I haven't any idea, truly. What put that notion into your mind?"

"The ghost's appearance. Her legs sort of trailed off into nothing." He shrugged. "It probably isn't important. But that's all it was, then, just a tragic accident?"

"Isn't that enough?"

"Probably. The ghost didn't return on her own for revenge, after all. But getting back to Tobin—"

"Tobias," Carstairs corrected, then flashed Bartido a grin. "Which one of us was it that just got out of bed?"

"Well, you're better rested than I am, then, so you _should_ have a clearer head. This time, though, I said it on purpose."

"Eh?"

"The ghost called him 'Tobin' and it seemed to mean something to him. I didn't know if that was a well-known nickname or not. Apparently it isn't, if you don't get a casual reference to it."

Carstairs nodded firmly.

"I've certainly never heard it before when anyone's talking about him. And it isn't a natural nickname for Tobias. Toby, certainly, but not Tobin. Especially not with the change in how you pronounce it."

"I agree. It's starting to look like 'proof,' the kind you get with any good con—or any good reality, for that matter."

"How did you learn so much about con games anyway, Bartido?"

"You'd be surprised what a gentleman can pick up."

That was actually the plain truth—if one allowed for Bartido's work for the Foreign Ministry. The tactics of the confidence game and of the spy were not too different, even though in one case the end was money and the other information. It was all about winning the confidence—hence the name—of the mark, controlling their perception so that they did not know what was intended. It wasn't just about successfully hiding, but about making sure that they didn't know even to look.

Bartido wondered how that applied to what the Proseccos were doing. If the ghosts had been _fake_ , then it would be their aim to keep people focused on the question of how can they conjure the spirits of the dead instead of the plain fact that they couldn't. But the ghosts were real; there was no getting around it.

So the question was, where did the con lay? Where was he not supposed to be looking? And was he smart enough to see through whatever traps had been laid? There was one type of con where the mark was expected to assume that he or she was being tricked, and the true scam lay in what trick was being played, like a thief getting the homeowner to post guards all around the strongbox while he was busy stealing a bottle of rare wine from the cellar. The Proseccos would have to know that they would be suspected by people like Carstairs, Tobias, and Dundee. It made sense that they'd want to control their perceptions as well, not just those of the credulous.

"Unfortunately," he said aloud, "it doesn't seem to be giving me any quick answers."

"But you think the backgrounds of these people matter?"

"At least, they'll help me figure out where to look. Does Tobias Guinness live with his family?"

"I don't think so. At least, he doesn't attend services with them. I've met the parents directly, but only seen him once or twice, and never talked with him. He's only a topic of rumors and gossip here because of his parents."

"So he's probably got his own rooms. It's too bad there's no public directory of addresses, but he shouldn't be too hard to run down. And in a worst case, I can ask Master Dundee. _Him_ I can find easily enough."

"I do know where the Guinnesses live, if that's of any use: The Willows, in Rathen Court."

"Thanks; it might be useful." He had no immediate plan to talk with the older couple, but it never hurt to have the information ready to hand if he needed it.

"Now, then, while I appreciate the update and I'm glad that I could be of use, I'd like to point out that the hour is growing late even by Town standards, and I have duties in the morning...as, I believe, do you."

Bartido nodded.

"That's true enough. I have a feeling that tomorrow is going to be a busy day." He let out a loud yawn, then was struck by where he was. "Funny; most of the time it's the sermon that makes me sleepy in church."

"If you want to keep making jokes about it, I could always have you listen to my draft of this week's."

"That's all right; I think I can fall asleep on my own tonight. I'd say that I'll probably sleep like the dead, except that lately that doesn't seem like that means very much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Incidentally, the debates over the Biblical story of how Saul had the Witch of Endor summon the spirit of the prophet Samuel that Bartido and Michael discuss are actually ones raised by real-world Biblical commentators, though without the reality of magic that must be factored into the GrimGrimoire universe.


	7. Chapter 7

Sleep did not in fact come easily to Bartido despite the late hour. He tried to get to bed, but his brain refused to cooperate. Images kept churning in his brain, the scenes at the Proseccos' house, the story told by Victoria Laird, the stately, well-furnished church sanctuary where he'd met with Carstairs. He kept wrestling with what he knew, trying to fit the pieces together into a consistent whole even when he _knew_ that he didn't have the complete puzzle. That knowledge didn't keep his instincts in check.

The problem was that he was a kinetic person at heart. He wanted to act, not react. Waiting was something he was horrible at. That trait made it hard to just sit back and let time pass until morning. It was nearing four when tiredness finally overcame his brain's urge to _do something._

That same quality proved useful in the morning, though. His eagerness to get to work brought him awake and shook off the fog of sleep. He took a couple of cups of strong coffee to give himself the extra kick for when enthusiasm wore out, and he went off in search of Tobias Guinness.

Despite the lack of guidance, it didn't take that long to find his quarry's direction. There were only a couple of districts where a gentleman of his age and position might maintain rooms, and some friendly chatter with servants and workers getting out and about their morning business in those areas quickly put him on the right track. Guinness was just finishing up breakfast as his landlady admitted Bartido.

"You! I remember you from last night at the séance," he challenged his guest at once. "Ballentyne, it was."

"Guinness," Bartido said with a nod. "I'd like to talk with you."

"Well, I don't. I have nothing to say to any of you stupid fools who insist on believing those charlatans. Go on, get out."

Without pausing to think it through, Bartido went with his gut instinct.

"I don't believe in them. As a matter of fact, I was there because the Church asked me to look into the situation, and that's the only reason I was there at all."

Guinness's eyebrows rose, a forkful of sausage halfway to his mouth.

"The Church? You're telling me you're some kind of investigator?"

"More like a favor for a friend. You had the same idea, after all. You saw a couple of people who claim they can raise up ghosts, so you brought in a magician to put them to the test. Of course, you got a better one than my friend did."

"And a fat lot of good it did me. The bastard stood up and said they were the real thing!"

He jammed the sausage into his mouth and bit down, chewing as if he were gnawing on Nathan Dundee's head.

"You can't blame the man for saying the ghosts were real when that's what they were. You even got _attacked_ by one. Master Dundee might have saved your life. We're not going to get anywhere if you don't start facing up to that reality."

"And what concern is it of mine if we _don't_ get anywhere? I didn't invite you here. I haven't asked you for so much as the time of day, Ballentyne." His fork clinked off the plate as he flung it down. "Why don't you just get out and let me have my meal in peace?"

Bartido gritted his teeth. It was probably time to backpedal a bit and work Guinness around to his way of thinking subtly. He had the look of a man who'd dig in his heels and push back just because he resented someone telling him what he should do. A little soft talking would probably be the right approach.

_Well, that or punching him in the mouth._

He did neither, though. He'd started off giving Guinness straight and direct talk, and he wasn't inclined to change course now.

"I could, but I don't like to see people like that win. Maybe you don't care after last night—"

Guinness slammed his hands against the table, pushing himself up out of his seat.

"Don't care? You think I don't care? What does it matter to you, anyway? You're just a hireling doing a job. You don't have a stake in this. You haven't had to watch your parents going from respected, intelligent, confident members of polite society to credulous fools hanging on every word that witch gives them like dogs begging for a treat! You haven't had to watch those two rip the scar off an old wound and keep it fresh and hot, so they can use a parent's natural grief against them!"

"Use against them to take their money, you mean."

"Money's what these vultures are after, yes! Or are you saying that it's all I care about? Is that what you think?"

After the last impassioned outburst, Bartido was starting to have significant doubts about that, but he also didn't care. Guinness's greed or lack of it wasn't relevant to solving the problem at hand, regardless of how much it might mean to the family.

"Honestly? That's your business. Whether it's your inheritance, your family's reputation, your parents' feelings, or maybe even all three, it doesn't change what the Proseccos want, which seems to me to be money, and good recommendations to other potential customers who might be looking for a medium."

"Hmph, well, that's right enough."

Guinness dropped into his chair again.

"So tell me what you think you can do, if you think Sara's ghost is real?"

"Just because the ghost is real doesn't mean that the Proseccos are. I'm hoping to discredit them as spiritualists, not as necromancers. It's those warm, fluffy feelings they're selling about the next world that makes them so attractive. It's like you just said. They look for people's grief, build it up, then soothe it away with their ghost act. Without that, they have nothing to offer that you can't get at church."

"Which explains your client's interest," Guinness said with a smugly knowing grin. "Getting rid of the competition."

 _I can't argue that_ , Bartido thought. Carstairs, at least, had the virtue that he genuinely saw that "competition" as wrongheaded and spiritually dangerous rather than as a threat to Church authority. There would be others, though, with less generous motives.

"Which doesn't matter either."

Bartido crossed his arms across his chest.

"So, are we going to be able to help each other out here or what?"

Guinness huffed.

"Fine. What is it that you want?"

Bartido pulled out a chair, spun it around, and sat down on it backwards, folding his arms over its back.

"The ghost called you 'Tobin.' You and your parents all reacted to that; I saw it. What does that mean?"

"It's just a nickname Sara gave me when we were little."

Bartido kept his gaze fixed on Guinness, not even bothering to demand in words that he expand on that. He gave in after seconds.

"I...I'd just gotten a new red waistcoat and I thought it made me look really sophisticated, so I was strutting around like a king. I was just a child, after all!"

Bartido thought that it illustrated a lot about Tobias Guinness's personality that he felt it necessary to defend his dignity over actions he'd taken as a young boy who'd just been acting his age.

"Sara, though, laughed at me. She said I looked like a robin strutting around with my red chest thrust out. So she said that's what she should call me, Tobias-robin, then thought that was too long and shortened it. That's where Tobin comes from."

"And why it rhymes with 'robin' instead of something like your name. But no one calls you that now?"

"Good God, no. Sara was the only one who ever did, and not for very long. That story, it was from the month before she died."

"I see." He let that sit for a long moment out of respect for Guinness's memories. Whatever else he might be feeling, he genuinely did seem to be sad at the memory of his sister's passing. The present couldn't be escaped, though, so Bartido went on to ask, "Who else knew about that nickname?"

His eyes widened. "That's right! The ghost used that name, so someone had to tell the Proseccos! Unless...unless that really was Sara that we saw."

Guinness's brow furrowed as he wrestled with the idea. His heart had been fixed on the idea that the ghost was a fraud, and it wasn't easy to even open up to the possibility that he'd been wrong about that. Attacking a core assumption was always hard.

"I don't know. There's my parents, of course. We had a nurse, too; she would have known. Did I have my tutor then? No, not yet, he was hired when I was nine."

"How about the other servants?"

"I don't know, I tell you. They might have heard it, if they were within earshot on an occasion when Sara called me by that name. I wouldn't have noticed who was or wasn't there."

"I suppose not, and it was a long time ago. Would a servant even remember? Probably not," Bartido decided, "unless they heard the story of why and the humor made it stick in their head."

Guinness didn't look happy at that; he clearly didn't like the idea of being the butt of laughter in the servants' hall, even twenty years past.

"Only my parents and the nurse would have known that."

"Would the nurse have told, if anyone else asked her?" Bartido pressed, but got a shrug of helplessness in return.

"I just can't say. I don't know what kind of relationships she had with the other servants, what she was or wasn't likely to tell them, any of that."

"I guess there's no help for it. It was twenty years ago and you were just a kid." Nor was it likely that a self-centered, unobservant man would have been much different as a boy. The nuances of other people's relationships would have been beyond him.

It was probably his awareness of the man's personal flaws, flaws that turned Guinness into a bad witness for the kind of information Bartido needed to find out, that made him sharper than he ought to have been with his next question.

"Well, here's something you probably can answer: I assume that there's been a fair amount of turnover in the servants at your parents' home?" In the country, retainers might often stay decades, since there were only so many households to work at in any given area and domestic service was usually better than most of the work alternatives available to that social class. Often whole families would work for one set of masters for generations.

"Well, yes, so far as I know. The butler and housekeeper are married to one another and they've been there forever; he started as a footman and she as a chambermaid. If you're asking about anyone else who might still be around from when Sara was alive, there isn't. The town house was closed up for a year after Sara died, when we moved to the country for my parents to grieve. Only a skeleton staff was kept on in the city, so the rest would have had to find other jobs."

"The nurse?"

"Oh, good God no. I mean, she was kept on until I was old enough for a proper tutor, but that was all. I wouldn't have the first idea where to look for her now."

Bartido wondered if Guinness even remembered her name; he hadn't used it yet.

Ultimately, though, it didn't matter. The point was that it wouldn't have been easy to hunt her down or anyone else who'd been on the Guinness's staff from that time. The number of passing years was just too great.

So, learning about the name Tobin hadn't been investigation. It could have been luck. They might have accidentally run into someone who could tell them what they wanted to know. Or maybe he had it backwards. Maybe the Proseccos had met an ex-servant who'd given them what they needed to entrap the Guinnesses in the first place. Or they could have picked up something from the butler or housekeeper if they'd ever visited the Guinnesses' home. Or the Guinnesses themselves might have spilled the information. That was the most likely possibility, given the facts.

Or the ghost might have been the real Sara Guinness.

Bartido didn't much like that last one.

"All right, then." He pushed back, stepping up out of the chair. "I'll let you get back to your breakfast."

"That's it? That's all you wanted to ask me?" Guinness was incredulous.

"That's all." He took a step towards the door, paused, then turned back. "Actually, no. It doesn't really relate to the problem, but do you have any idea how much money your parents are giving to the Proseccos?" It didn't solve any of the problems of _how_ , but it might help with the _why._

"Five thousand sovereigns."

" _What_? That pouch they handed over last night was big enough for maybe a dozen. How often have they been going, to add up to a total of that size?"

Tobias shook his head.

"That misses the point entirely. I think they've paid out a hundred or two in those kind of donations, significant money but nothing they couldn't afford."

"So what's the five thousand, then?"

"It's an endowment. The spiritualists have set up a trust to establish an 'academy' where they will study their abilities, seek out people with mediumistic talent and train them to develop their gifts, and to expand and refine spiritualist philosophy with the results of their research."

"My God." _One_ thousand sovereigns was the annual income of a successful physician or advocate.

"It's not just them, either. Other clients of the Proseccos are contributing as well, though I don't know the amounts." He had a smug smile on his lips, as if to say, _Still think I'm just a money-grubber?_

Which he might well be, but if so, the figures involved at least made the concerns justified.

"You said that the money was put into a trust, not given to the Proseccos directly." Even emotion-wracked people swept away by a new ideal tended to still have some basic instincts. "They wouldn't want to shatter the illusion, but they'd still have to have a way to get hold of the money. Do you know the terms of the trust? Who the trustees are?"

Guinness shook her head.

"I have no idea. Frankly, I doubt if my parents even know all of the details. They're so besotted with the Proseccos that they'll swallow any half-convincing story. But I do know the name of the advocate who drew up the trust charter, since he had to meet with my parents to arrange their endowment. It's Trenton Argyle."

Bartido smiled and rubbed his hands together.

"Well, then, it looks like I have another call to pay."

"He won't tell you anything. Advocates are as tight-lipped as a clam," Guinness muddled his metaphor slightly, "when it comes to their clients' affairs."

"Particularly when there's this much money being thrown around," the young magician agreed. "But I wasn't planning on being particularly polite in my asking."

Tobias gave him a toothy smile, no doubt imagining that in a completely different way than Bartido had intended it.

"Well, now, I might have gotten the wrong idea about you entirely, Ballentyne."

_Winning your approval doesn't really thrill and excite me._

"Is there anything else you can think of, about the trust or any other part of this business? Even if it's something tiny that doesn't seem important?"

Guinness shook his head.

"I'm afraid not."

"Then I'd better be about my business."

A snort greeted that declaration. "I doubt he'll be in. Advocates are nearly as bad as bankers and men-of-affairs when it comes to keeping short hours."

"That's all right. Argyle isn't my next stop. Figuring out who's paying for the ghosts is important, but it's more important to discover how they got there in the first place. And since you were obliging enough to call in an expert witness to that problem, I think I ought to make use of that expertise."

* * *


	8. Chapter 8

Unlike Tobias Guinness, Bartido's next two stops didn't require skill and effort to find. The advocate would be easy; a man trying to attract business would make sure that he could be found. Indeed, he would certainly take steps to see that his existence was broadcast to as many potential clients as he could.

Nathan Dundee was even easier. A powerful magician quickly becomes well-known unless actively taking steps to avoid it. They become celebrated—or notorious. Their existence was unmistakable, particularly to another magician.

In Dundee's case, he played to type; his home was a small, squat stone tower on a tiny island in the Avalon that was barely big enough for the building, a dock, and a small boathouse. It cost Bartido a toll of a few pence to have a boatman ferry him over and wait for his return.

" _If_ ye return," the grizzled riverman cackled with an evil grin, but his face quickly sobered. "That's an evil place, it be. Yer lucky it be morning still; come nightfall ye'll not find a man who'll spend a moment here. That fellow, he calls the dead with his magic, as if there b'ain't ghosts and haunts enough on this river without him."

Bartido didn't bother to point out that Necromancy was perfectly capable of summoning up ghosts by broad daylight. He thought that Dundee's public relations didn't need any more damage.

It was true, though, that of the four kinds of magic it was Necromancy that was the most ill-regarded by the average person. Even Sorcery, the art of dealing with devils, didn't generate the same kind of fear. A sorcerer was frightening because of the danger he posed, like a pack of starving wolves or an outlaw gang. Necromancy didn't just threaten danger, but terrified on a deeper level. Death, and anything associated with it, was just too much of a mystery for people to be comfortable around. Even Bartido himself felt a little of that. His specialty of Alchemy was about deciphering, then using, the laws of life. Death and souls were a greater mystery that lay beyond life.

Hiram had never had any problem with Necromancy at the Tower; it was his preferred field. But then again, in Hiram's case his main focus hadn't been Necromancy but one particular necromancer, Opalneria Rain. Who was pretty hot when she let her hair down and unstiffened a little. But Hiram thought she was attractive all the time, which was pretty solid evidence that he was better suited to her than Bartido. At least as far as serious intentions went (and again, with those two, what _wasn't_ serious?).

Bartido considered himself rewarded for admitting his friend was a better fit for an attractive woman than he was when his ring at the tower's bell-push was answered by a pretty girl his own age.

"Good morning," she said cheerily. She had bright red hair a shade more towards orange than Victoria Laird and wide green eyes, and was wearing a dove-gray wizard's robe. Bartido wondered if the color was popular with necromancer girls.

"Good morning." He smiled at her. "My name is Bartido Ballentyne, and I'd like to speak with Master Dundee, if I may."

The girl's face fell.

"I'm sorry, but Master Dundee doesn't see people without an appointment." Her tone and expression made it seem like she really was sorry, that it was a cause for personal concern. Which might have meant that the Ballentyne charm was in full force this morning, that she was just a sweet girl who sympathized with anyone who took the trouble to come out to the island, or she was just a good actress working public relations for the magician. "It's nothing personal, really; he once had me turn away a High Lord!"

"Well, I think he'll make an exception for me if you tell him it's about last night's séance."

"Mr. Ballentyne, I don't think—"

"Bartido," he corrected her. "And there's no harm in asking, is there? If he says no, then I can just go ahead and make an appointment in the regular way." He gave her his most dazzling smile.

"All right, I'll try...Bartido."

That narrowed it down to either charm or acting.

"Please come in and sit down; I'll be back in a moment." She ushered him into the foyer and gestured towards one of several chairs that were up against the wall. The same elegant simplicity of décor that had been in the Proseccos' anteroom was present here as well. The only difference was that from Dundee, it was expected.

The girl returned in less than two minutes, a very surprised look on her face.

"Master Dundee says that he'll see you, Mr. Ballentyne. How did you do that? He _never_ sees anyone without an appointment."

He flashed her a smile. "It's just a matter of having something that _he_ wants to talk about with _me_."

She led him up the broad spiral staircase. Dundee was, it seemed, a traditionalist; they went through two more levels before emerging on what from the outside looked like the highest floor, a fact confirmed by the large octagonal skylight that pierced the ceiling. Unlike the lower levels, the top floor had no landing; the stairs emerged directly into a large study. Bookshelves and a broad worktable lined the walls, though the general impression was of a research room and office rather than a magical workshop. But then again, Necromancy tended to be a less... _volatile_...magical art than Alchemy.

"Ah! Ballentyne!" Dundee barked, his voice as sharp as on the night before. "Thank you, Vine; that will be all."

"Yes, Master Dundee," the girl said with a bow, then scurried back downstairs.

"Your apprentice?" Bartido asked conversationally.

"Yes, Miss Vine Petri. There's talent there, if she learns to focus. Flighty chit, that one, but they all are, at that age. It's a plain fact of life."

"Being that age myself, I'm not sure I like that."

"Don't get snippy; it's a basic truth. You have to get a few years on you to get that hot blood cooled off. Of course, some cool faster than others. Look at that Guinness fellow last night. If you can do better than that it'll be a sound step you can be proud of." He paused. "But obviously you didn't come for a lecture on the shortcomings of the young; you came to talk about what happened last night. Sit down and we'll get started."

He gestured at one of the two cushioned, wood-backed seats that faced his desk. Bartido sat. He'd guessed right; Dundee was obviously as eager as he was to talk over last night's events, and best with someone who was a witness and a magician both.

"I appreciate you seeing me like this. Miss Petri said you don't ordinarily see random visitors."

"I don't. A strict policy keeps the riff-raff at bay. It might be vain, but I generally assume my time is more valuable than that of whomever's clamoring at the door. Not to mention that at my age I haven't got as much of it left to waste on fools as you do to waste on an old man's jabbering. But this is different."

Bartido nodded.

"Very different, I think. It's like how someone managing to stitch together a creature in his basement but have it animate and breed true would be to me as an alchemist."

Dundee scowled, his thick brows almost merging into one.

"I hardly consider it a laughing matter."

"Neither do I. My friends the Lairds brought me along because they thought I would find it entertaining. I don't think they have any idea just how significant what happened is." He shrugged. "That's what happens when you're dealing with laymen in any profession. They're not aware of the fine details that matter."

Dundee nodded.

"The question is, do you believe it?"

Bartido shook his head.

"Actually, Master Dundee, the question is if _you_ do. I'm nobody. When it comes to Necromancy, I'm still apprentice-grade. Alchemy's the only area where you could call me a true magician and not be telling a joke. But you, you're this country's version of Dr. Chartreuse, or if we want to stay in the right field, Ms. Opalneria Rain. What you say about these mediums matters. It carries weight even with people who have no idea what it is that you're actually saying or how important it would be to our understanding of basic magical laws."

He wondered if he'd pushed things a bit too far, if it was starting to sound like flattery rather than a show of respect. He consoled himself with the notions that most magicians who were in Dundee's position had the ego to match, and that the night before was the first time they'd met so he wouldn't know that effusive praise and toadying up weren't at all Bartido's style.

The point, after all, was to get the man in a mood to show off by telling all he knew, not make Bartido to be some kind of lickspittle with an ulterior motive.

"So you're here because...?"

"Because I'd like to know what you do have to say."

"Fair enough, but I want to hear what your opinion is as well." Bartido opened his mouth to reply, but Dundee forestalled him with a raised hand. "Whatever the limitations of your knowledge of Necromancy, you were an eyewitness and are a magician. That makes what you have to say more useful to me than any five of the others."

_Who's flattering whom, now?_

"All right, Master Dundee. You said that what we saw were ghosts and that seemed plain to me, too. They might be faking the how and why of it, but they're not lying about summoning the dead."

"Of course. What else?"

Dundee's gaze transfixed him as if he were a student about to be tested. Bartido had to fight down the reflex to squirm nervously in his seat.

"They were properly summoned right there in that room. They didn't float in from anywhere else."

"Good; I concur. And?"

"I always thought that it was all but impossible to summon the ghost of a specific person like that. Now, working with Dr. Chartreuse, I saw, even assisted with works of Alchemy that I didn't think were possible, either, so maybe you know differently?"

Dundee shook his head slowly.

"It isn't impossible, just difficult and time-consuming. You have to understand that to focus a summoning on a single, unique person's spirit requires a single, unique Rune to accomplish it. The basic structure of the Hades Gate has to be modified by adding specific symbolism that refers to the one person and no other. It's a matter not only of calling to that single person but also of shutting out any other ghost that might attempt to answer the summoning. For a sufficiently skilled necromancer, I'd say that it could be done in a couple of hours' concentrated work, designing the Rune."

"What do you mean by 'sufficiently skilled'?"

"Oh, a solid grounding in the principles of Necromancy is necessary. He or she would have to have mastered the various permutations of the standard Hades Gate Rune, so a thorough knowledge of that grimoire would be needed. It would also take familiarity with other forms of necromantic summoning to be able to expand on and develop the theory."

"So above-average, but not all the way to Master-class in Necromancy if they'd focused in the right areas. And time wouldn't be a factor; they'd know the Guinnesses were coming well in advance."

"True enough, but you overlook one point with that supposition."

"You mean the body."

Dundee nodded.

"Exactly. To summon a specific ghost invariably requires the presence of the deceased's corpse as a spiritual anchor to draw the correct soul to the living world. This seems to be an inescapable point; the Lusatians in pagan times cremated their dead on pyres rather than burying them to allow their fallen warriors to rest, and it is said the custom of burning witches began to keep their ghosts from being summoned back to wreak revenge, although fire is not a sovereign remedy against a ghost manifesting on its own."

"In which case, maybe it's possible to summon one without the body, if the same principle that lets, I guess you could call them natural ghosts, run free could be discovered and used?"

"Do you believe that's the explanation?"

"Well, it's more pleasant than believing that the Proseccos or some hireling went out to the cemetery, dug up Sara Guinness's body, and brought it back so some rogue necromancer could summon her up and use her to weasel money out of her parents."

"You have a disturbing turn of mind to even consider that possibility without evidence." Dundee actually looked a little unnerved at Bartido's mention of casual graverobbing.

"If it makes any difference, it wouldn't likely be practical. It might work for one or two people, but not _all_ their clients. Sooner or later the logistics would catch up to them: tombs they couldn't get into, people buried out of town, maybe days or weeks of travel away, that sort of thing. And then you get the problem of the surprise guest. Victoria Laird wasn't planning on going until last night; it was a last-second decision, but they were ready for her?"

And that was assuming they even knew she'd _had_ a baby once, something that seemed outside the power of casual confidence tricksters. Her brother might have confessed the secret to the Proseccos (with the best of intentions, no doubt, thinking it for her own good), but would he really do that? It wasn't in the nature of young gentlemen to disclose an intimate family secret, particularly a scandalous one, no matter what good outcome they believed might come of it. Laird's natural action would have been to convince Victoria to talk to them if he could, so _she_ could ask them to summon the dead infant's ghost for her.

It was also a perfect example of the "buried outside the city" problem.

Dundee straightened a teacup on his desk.

"I'm glad to hear you say that. We must not allow ourselves as magicians to be blinded by what we think to be impossible just because we have always believed it to be so. I admit, I have been thinking about this problem quite a bit since last night. No Runes were drawn or invoked, and your points about advance preparation are quite cogent. This would in turn rule out the use of a talisman, which might otherwise possibly be invoked without us noticing, even while holding hands."

"Particularly if the husband's the one doing the invoking, since people's eyes would be on his wife."

"Quite, but in this instance we can rule that out because of the inability to prepare such a talisman for Miss Laird. So, what does that leave us?"

"You're not saying that you believe in those mediumistic powers they claim to possess?"

Dundee shook his head emphatically.

"Of course not, at least not in the terms they express it. The concept flies in the face of all known magical laws. Yet neither can we deny the facts. What I believe is that those people have stumbled upon a breakthrough in ritual Necromancy." He paused a moment, then added dryly, "I can see that this surprises you."

That was just about the understatement of the century, Bartido decided. He wasn't even bothering to hide his shock; he'd churned through a lot of ideas since the previous night about how the Proseccos might have been doing what they'd done, but they'd all fundamentally been about _trickery_ , some way of deceiving their audience into believing that they were doing something that they were not.

It hadn't even crossed his mind to think that they could actually be sincere.

"I'm not sure that 'surprises' really covers it."

"And that would certainly be a rational response. Yet consider the facts as we have already discussed them. When you rule out the use of Runes or talismans and dismissing the idea that it is possible for some entirely new, undiscovered type of ability could spontaneously appear, the only logical conclusion is that an extension of magical law is in play. Researchers are discovering new aspects of the natural and magical underpinnings of creation regularly; it is not impossible that people with a misguided devotion to summoning the ghosts of the dead should blunder into a new area out of a combination of enthusiasm and ignorance."

"So you believe that Madame Prosecco is a magician, whether she knows it or not, and that she's stumbled into a method of ritual Necromancy that can bypass some of the requirements of current ghost summoning?"

"Exactly. And I have to say that it's a fascinating circumstance. I want to study her methods, to try and see precisely what it is that she's done. Possibly, in some way, the connection between the dead person and living family members is being substituted for the corpse, since the blood of the deceased flows in their veins. A fascinating situation!"

Bartido managed to suppress a grin. Dundee's enthusiasm was palpable, reminding him of Dr. Chartreuse when the lion-headed alchemist was on the trail of some new breakthrough. He supposed there was a little of that in every great magician, the spark that drove them to learn more and push the boundaries of their power.

"Well, you may be able to get that opportunity," he said. "They tell me that the Proseccos are trying to set up some kind of academy or the like to study and develop the power of spiritualism. If you're right about what they're doing, you might be able to take advantage of that."

He let out a sigh, and his customary stern glare replaced the short-lived look of intellectual eagerness.

"I have my doubts there. It's plain to see that they regard what they are doing as revelatory, imbuing it with all sort of extraneous significance. Permitting an analysis from a magical standpoint, let alone submitting to the rigorous tests needed to codify the effect so that a Rune can be created, will be difficult in the extreme. Still," he murmured, rubbing his chin, "were I to properly couch my requests, and appeal to their spirit of discovery rather than challenging them over the technical details about which to concern themselves...yes, then perhaps there is a chance. At the very least I must make the effort to see. We may be on the cusp of a significant breakthrough."

"How ironic would that be?"

"Eh?"

"Tobias Guinness brought you to the Proseccos to expose them as frauds, and instead he might end up giving you a major breakthrough in Necromancy."

"As you grow older, Ballentyne, you'll learn that happy accidents lay behind most great discoveries. The most important work of the researcher is to recognize them for what they are instead of letting the moment pass by."

"I suppose so. There's still one thing that puzzles me, though."

"Oh? What would that be?"

"The things the girl's ghost said about the afterlife, the way she experienced it. They ran pretty much in lock-step with what the spiritualists are claiming, or at least they sounded that way from what I picked up last night and what Will Laird's been telling me."

Dundee looked at him as if he'd grown a second head. Or that might have been too generous. That simile conveyed amazement, but the expression was more like the kind of surprise he'd show if Vine had tried to draw a Fairy Ring to summon a ghost: the "yes, I am amazed, and what I am amazed at is the sheer depth of your stupidity" kind of reaction.

"And what concern is that to me? I said it already last night, that these discussions of philosophy and religion are best left to those who devote their time to them. I am a magician, not a politician or a priest, and constrain my activities to those fields in which I am concerned."

He gave Bartido a long, measuring look.

"You think I'm wrong, don't you? The young generally do. As do those old enough to know better, on occasion. Look at that tower you just left. The Archmage Calvaros learned well what the cost of mistaking himself for a king was."

"If you know that much—"

"Then I know that you were abroad on our government's behalf? Of course, but that's not the same thing at all. As a magician, you did a job for a client, whatever it may have been. It is often necessary. But!" He held up one long, thin finger. "The question must be asked: are you a magician who occasionally takes work for the government, or a Royal man who dabbles in magic? The answer must be the former, if you are to call yourself an alchemist or a magician. No one can serve two masters. And thus my concern with those spiritualists is in their magic, their method of ghost-summoning. It may be that the ghost's talk supports spiritualism because its summoner so commands it, all unwittingly. Or it may not. Philosophical questions are not a magician's purview. Let the Church consider these matters, Ballentyne; you will be better off for it."

_Except for the fact that the Church is my client._

It wasn't that he couldn't understand Dundee's single-minded focus. Certainly that was how Dr. Chartreuse would have seen the situation. Probably Ms. Opalneria and Professor Gammel as well, though the latter had spent too much time riding the edge of a keen political knife in his own country to avoid the implications. Even so, what Gammel Dore had fought for was the freedom of magicians to practice magic, not so different from what Dundee was saying.

But that wasn't how Bartido thought. Maybe it was because he was young, like Master Dundee said. Or maybe it was the other point he'd made: that Bartido _wasn't_ a magician at heart. Magic was interesting, fascinating, even, but he didn't see it as an end in and of itself. Magic was a useful tool that he could employ to accomplish what he wanted, but that was all, a skill like riding or hand-fighting or cryptography.

"Thank you for your time," he said aloud. "You've given me a lot to think about."

"I hope it will be of service." He reached out and tapped a bell on the corner of his desk. It vibrated as if ringing, but no sound came from it. "I'll have Miss Vine show you out, then. And I wish you good luck in your own studies."

The cheery apprentice, her perky attitude so incongruous in the tower of a master necromancer, all but bounced into the room.

"You rang, Master?" Obviously the bell had been magical, signaling in another part of the tower—or perhaps, just wherever Vine might be.

"Please show Mr. Ballentyne out, Vine"

"Yes, Master."

She led Bartido down the stairs, not exactly a difficult path to the exit. The escort was more formality than anything, a courtesy to a guest—and a way to keep him from poking around the tower where he didn't belong. It was not a charitable thought, but then again Bartido would have been willing to wager there had been any number of attempts to steal Master Dundee's secrets over his decades of life.

"I hope Master Dundee was able to answer your question," the girl told him, unaware or unconcerned with the undercurrents. "It must have been frightfully important for him to see you directly."

"Well, I did get one question answered, but it was one that I didn't realize I'd been asking. As for the business I came on, well, I think that all I got were a couple of new questions."


	9. Chapter 9

Bartido stepped off the dock onto dry land feeling enlightened, but not particularly like he had gotten anywhere. He knew a little more about Master Dundee and a little more about himself, but he wasn't sure how any of it got him any closer to solving the problem of the Proseccos. He'd gone to Dundee to try to put the technical constraints of Necromancy in place so he could see where the weaknesses lay, and instead he'd gotten another enthusiast wanting to seek the Proseccos out! Admittedly, it wasn't for the same reasons as their followers in the spiritualist movement that so bothered Carstairs, but even so...

A raucous squalling caught his attention, and he turned to his right to see where three gulls were dipping and diving over the river, snapping at floating bits of something or other while voicing their displeasure at each other for taking more than their fair share.

Not too different than people, he supposed.

Maybe he was just being a cynic. Maybe going to the Silver Star Tower as a spy, to try to steal the Philosopher's Stone for Albion, had tainted his perception. Looking under the surface for hidden motives and often finding them created an expectation, right? Too much of that made a man cautious, but also suspicious, untrusting.

_But whatever the reason, I can't get around thinking the Proseccos are liars._

The question was, could he trust that assumption? Had it been instinct, observation, paranoia, or the preconceived idea that they were up to no good because they were who he was investigating?

When he didn't know where information was coming from, he had to treat it with suspicion. That was a lesson in logic from Dr. Chartreuse. _Mind you, I think one of the reasons he thinks that way is that he's so out of touch with his own feelings. Or maybe just doesn't have them, if we're talking about an eye for a pretty girl. But it's good advice._

On the other hand, trusting people when his gut was telling him not to wasn't exactly smart, either.

He looked at the other people in the little drama. Carstairs he was sure he could trust. Not only was the curate his friend, but he sounded right, worried about the right things for his role. The Guinnesses were obviously who they appeared to be, parents and son both. He was still up in the air over whether Tobias was driven by money, love, or both, but the man's goals were clear even if his motive was in doubt.

Bartido could bring himself to imagine Will Laird as a shill, using a genial manner to lure in customers. It wasn't likely he'd do it to Victoria, though, but siblings could betray one another if their characters fit. Or Victoria herself might be in on the deception, the ghost at the séance and her willingness to tell her story to Bartido all part of the act. He felt a little bit ashamed of himself for having the thought, but there it was. The reason he ultimately dismissed it and decided that the Lairds were what they seemed, though, was that Bartido Ballentyne wasn't worth the effort. He lacked the money and the contacts that would justify going to such trouble. if Victoria was truly a fake, she'd have been better off using her tale and her wiles on Tobias Guinness, who was a threat to five thousand sovereigns, even to the point of bringing a master magician to examine the performance.

_Which leaves me where?_

The elder Guinnesses showed it was possible to be a true believer in spiritualism. But were the Proseccos?

He couldn't believe it.

_Why?_

The riverside area and its buildings gave him the first hint: the decor in their house. He'd been surprised by it then: it was understated and tasteful. It took a good eye and a reasonable outlay of money. But they were charging admission fees. After the fact, admittedly, but there it was. For the most part, the gentry held a distaste for engaging in trade. Oh, there were exceptions—medicine, the law, education, and yes, magic—where working professionals could meet the upper classes in genteel, respectable fields of business. But the end result was this: a member of the gentry who was a sincere believer in spiritualism wouldn't see it _as_ a profession to practice. That implied a working-class person who saw it _as_ work, _as_ a way to make money. And he could see that, too; if a person discovered they had mediumistic abilities it would be reasonable that they'd see value to be earned. But they wouldn't _pretend_. They wouldn't have had the money for the initial investment in the house, and _probably_ wouldn't have the knowledge of interior decoration needed to produce the right effect.

It was, in short, too theatrical to be honest work and too practical to be devout spirituality. It was a traveling charm-seller pretending to be a real magician, or a village wisewoman or hedge-wizard pretending to be more powerful than they were. It was, in short, a deception.

That was what people were missing: the Guinnesses, who had an emotional need for what the Proseccos were offering; Will Laird, who found an exciting thrill in being part of something new and outside the ordinary rut of social life; Master Dundee, who was as passionate about the potential of a new breakthrough in Necromancy as Dr. Chartreuse was when he'd been working on Amoretta's design. They looked only at the results, and tried to justify them through their preconceived point of view.

 _Of course, I still need to make sure I'm not doing the same thing._ Being skeptical meant critical thinking, not a mule-headed refusal to listen. The latter was what had gotten Tobias nearly killed by trying to grab a ghost with his bare hands.

But Bartido didn't think he was doing that. Reason and the facts seemed to bear out his instincts. And _that_ meant that his job was different than how Master Dundee had approached the problem. He didn't need to figure out a necromantic puzzle; he needed to figure out how the existence of that puzzle had been faked.

He also needed to be ready for what came later. Discrediting the spiritualists would be useful, but it would be better if actual criminal charges could be filed. There was always sympathy with someone that the establishment tried to suppress; opinions had a lot of coin. There was a lot less sympathy for an admitted thief.

His mind made up, Bartido flagged down a carriage and told the jarvey to take him to Six Gates, where the banking, financial, and legal business of the city was congregated. Once they'd passed within the walls of Logres-on-Avalon, whose ancient bounds made up the district, he paid off the driver and got down, only to flag down another carriage on the next block. The Logres Carriage Guild controlled most of the hackney trade in Six Gates, meaning that if you wanted a jarvey who knew the ins and outs of the district, you needed to hire a carriage within the area, and not one right at the gate, either.

Sure enough, Bartido's new driver was able to take him directly to the building that housed Trenton Argyle's legal practice. It was a high, stone building with arched windows and a narrow iron-banded door that gave the impression of a medieval fortress. He wondered if the point was to imply that the secrets of the clients were kept safe within, or that those who worked there offered the same kind of power in the business world as a castle did to the military?

_Or just an architectural accident?_

A series of brass nameplates outside the door told Bartido that Argyle was not the only person to work in the building, nor was it entirely dedicated to the law. A variety of professional offices, two to each story, were present, except for 3A, which stood unoccupied and no doubt open for lease. 2B was Argyle's.

Despite the bulk of the door, it was not locked, though he supposed that the landlord might lock up each night. Nor was there a porter; Bartido simply walked into the lobby, which had dark wood floors and fittings to contrast with the stone walls. Doors on either side told him what he needed to know about the layout; 1A was to his left and 1B to his right, establishing that the building was split left-right rather than front-back. A staircase with an elaborate balustrade ran up to the second floor, and Bartido stepped towards it, but paused with his hand on the newel post.

It was true that Argyle had key information about what the Proseccos were up to, information that Bartido needed. But it wasn't as if he was going to just _tell_ Bartido about it. Heck, just getting an advocate to talk about a client's ordinary business was next to impossible, let alone when it was something dishonest. No, there were only two likely ways he was going to learn what Trenton Argyle knew: obtain some significant leverage that could pry his lips open, or obtain it by stealth. The former didn't seem likely at this point, though a surprise might occur.

_Which means I'll be breaking and entering._

Calling on Argyle might be useful. It would let him have advance knowledge of the office's layout, get to see what Argyle looked like, and otherwise gain all the benefits of "casing the crib." But it also posed a risk: that the advocate might smell a rat or see through Bartido's cover story. Playing word games and lying glibly would be Argyle's field of expertise, after all.

And if he did find something wrong, he might warn the Proseccos. Bartido Ballentyne, young gentleman attending a séance as a lark, didn't have any reason to be calling on the Proseccos' advocate. He didn't have enough money to invest in the trust, and even if he did it wouldn't sound convincing that he hadn't approached the Proseccos themselves about it. Since he hadn't given the impression on the previous night of being awed and overwhelmed by the so-called medium, they wouldn't believe it of him now. And if he gave Argyle a false name, but they compared descriptions and realized who he was, that would be even worse.

With some regret, as he'd have enjoyed taking on Argyle, he stepped back off the one step he'd mounted, and went back out the door again. He'd be back, but not during business hours.

It was getting on past midday by this point, so Bartido's first stop after leaving Argyle's was the nearest coffeehouse, where he washed half a steak pie down with two cups of coffee for lunch. The body fed, he spent the afternoon going from shop to shop, equipping himself with the tools he'd need for breaking and entering. He regretted not having contacts with the local underworld; they would have been useful in outfitting himself with some of the more exotic and specialized pieces of burglar's equipment. He made do as best he could, though, until he was fairly sure that he was as prepared as was reasonably possible.

His most useful tool he carried within himself, anyway.

The waiting would have been the worst part, watching the hours tick by with nothing to do, but thankfully he did have one more call to make, one last element to arrange.

~X X X~

"You want me to do _what_?"

Judging by Michael Carstairs's reaction, it was going to take quite a while to win him around to the wisdom of Bartido's idea. _Convincing him just gives me something to do._

"I think I explained it pretty clearly, Michael."

His friend gave him nearly the same I-am-amazed-at-the-depth-of-your-stupidity look as had Dundee.

"Bartido, I'm a priest. You've actually just walked into a house of God and asked a man of the cloth in his own office to participate in a felony! If you were counting the sins off on your fingers, you'd have to use both hands to account for that one act."

"Oh, please, it's probably no more than two or three. I'm not going to steal anything, at least not for profit, so you can't even accuse me of avarice."

"That isn't the point."

"Of course it's the point. If I was going to do something evil, you'd be completely in the right to carry on like this. But that's not the case and you know it."

"You're talking about house-breaking, Bartido. You can get five years at hard labor for that regardless of what you do or don't steal."

"That's my risk. I just need you to drive the carriage."

"That would still make me an accessory."

"Oh, please. What watchman is going to believe that a priest is driving the carriage for a burglar? The idea's absurd on its face."

"I'm glad you realize that, because it _is_ absurd and it's _not_ going to happen."

"C'mon, Michael, you're the only one I can trust to do this. I need the carriage; if I have to slink through the city hiding my face and carrying a bag of burglar's tools, then I _will_ be stopped and probably arrested. I had might as well carry a sign reading 'Up to No Good' around with me."

"Then why—" Carstairs started to ask a question but Bartido anticipated him and cut him off.

"Why can't I hire a driver with the carriage? Because I couldn't trust him. An honest jarvey wouldn't take the work, and a dishonest one is as likely as not to give me up for some advantage or in hope of a thief-taking reward. Some of my friends might go along just for the fun of it, but I couldn't trust them either, not to lose their nerve or ask too many questions. If it isn't you, then I'll have to ask Tobias Guinness. He'd go along with it, but I can't trust _him_ not to lose his head and do something stupid like he did last night."

Carstairs sighed.

"Possibly you're missing the point, which is that you shouldn't be doing this _at all_?"

"If you ask me, the Proseccos gave up any right they had to their privacy when they started reaching out to people to take their money under false pretenses. You do agree that this notion of an afterlife which ignores the repentance of and penance for the sins committed in this life counts as false pretenses, right?"

Carstairs glared at him.

"You certainly argue like a devil."

Bartido wondered if maybe he'd spent too much time in Advocat's classes after all.

"I'm just saying that what I'm planning to do isn't actually morally wrong. Legally, yes, it's still housebreaking, but it's the _right_ thing to do to find out what those people are up to. You asked me to help because you knew I'd been working for the Crown, didn't you?"

The curate's eyebrows rose.

"You were _what_?"

"...Or I could be wrong about that." He muttered a few choice curses in his head, all directed at himself. That kind of stupidity could have gotten him killed at the Tower if he'd given himself away before the Philosopher's Stone had been destroyed and his espionage made moot. "Devil take it, Master Dundee knew, or at least he knew some of it, and it tricked me into thinking it was more general knowledge than I thought."

"Well, if it is general knowledge, it isn't something that I was privy to." Carstairs shook his head. "Seriously, Bartido? You've worked for the Crown?"

He nodded.

"I'd appreciate you not telling anyone else, but yes. They were the ones who sent me to the Silver Star Tower to study."

"Then this sort of business is old hat to you."

"Like I said, I thought that was why you asked."

Carstairs shook his head again.

"I guess you grew up even more than I thought you did. But then, on the other hand, you're still suggesting the same course of action that had us stealing apples out of Squire Molson's orchard when we were twelve."

"I don't recall you raising this many arguments back then."

"I'm not twelve any more, and I've gained a somewhat new perspective on 'thou shalt not steal,' as you might have noticed."

"As have I. Instead of a way to fatten my stomach on forbidden fruit, it's a viable strategy for investigating ne'er-do-wells. And I'm fairly sure that there isn't a commandment reading 'thou shalt not break and enter for the purpose of finding evidence to expose evildoers who are using deception to steal money and promote contrary theology' unless it's hidden in one of the more obscure passages."

"That is not the point and you know it."

"Actually, I think it is the point, Michael. If you can sit there, look me in the eyes, and tell me that you think breaking into the Proseccos' house is the morally wrong choice, I'll stop asking for your help _and_ I'll promise to seriously think about what it is that I'm doing. You can't ask for anything fairer, can you?"

"I'm glad that you're starting to see reason about this."

Bartido didn't respond; he just folded his hands in his lap and waited.

"The entire idea's ludicrous; you'll have yourself taken up by a watchman or caught in the act."

Silence.

"I can't believe that you'd even..." At last Carstairs broke off in mid-sentence. "Oh, bloody hell," he finished in very unpriestly fashion. "No, I can't say you're wrong. Though if we get caught, I'm sure my superiors won't agree."

Bartido grinned at him.

"Well, I'd say that's more in your power than mine. After all, I wasn't the one who knocked over the ladder and left us up a tree to be caught by the squire's gamekeeper."


	10. Chapter 10

"I still think this is a bad idea!"

Carstairs's words echoed in Bartido's mind as he approached the rear of the Proseccos' house. The narrow alleyway that wound behind the row of houses was dim, the fetid smell of garbage from too many kitchens fouling his nostrils.

"You might be right about that, Michael," he murmured under his breath.

Of course, Carstairs wasn't actually there to hear Bartido's admission, which was part of the point of why he'd made it then rather than earlier. The priest was a couple of blocks away in the driver's seat of a rented carriage, his cape's high collar turned up and his slouch hat's brim pulled low to obscure his identity. His heart, or perhaps his nerve, clearly wasn't in what he was doing, but he was there all the same.

Meanwhile, Bartido was about to steal into the home of two people whom he strongly suspected were criminals, and whom he knew had at least a rudimentary skill with Necromancy.

The basic problem presented by stealing from a magician was that, as might be deemed obvious, they protected their possessions with magic. There were a lot of ways to ward a building, as Bartido had learned while poking around the Silver Star Tower in search of the Philosopher's Stone. There were wards that provided barriers to entry, reinforcing mundane locks. There were those that triggered damaging attacks against those who tripped them. There were those that raised an alarm, either by making noise or by communicating with the warding Rune's maker. And there were the kind that called out previously bound familiars like a talisman. It went without saying that he didn't want to open a window only to find himself neck-deep in phantoms.

Fortunately, the best thief to work against a magician was another magician.

Taking out his wand, Bartido began to sketch out a Rune on the alley floor. Golden-yellow light, the color of Alchemy, shone out as he kindled the design with mana and the Laboratory took shape. The most basic of the Alchemy grimoires, the Laboratory was exactly what its name implied, a way to duplicate the magical processes of mixing chemicals and reagents. Instead of having to use such expensive and difficult-to-find items, the alchemist needed only to provide mana and the Rune would do the rest.

Thus, what had once taken hours of noxious brews and complicated manipulation of equipment now took only a couple of minutes from the time Bartido started drawing the Rune to the time a homunculus tottered out of it.

The common homunculus was not a beautiful woman like Amoretta Virgine. It was only a couple of feet tall, with no discernable gender, and was covered in orange fur to go with its catlike head and wide, curious eyes. The majority of its form was encased in a thin glass flask; only black-skinned hands and feet protruded from the narrow neck so it could walk. Homunculi were probably the greatest success of Alchemy, stable lives crafted with intelligence. Their grave weakness was that they could not leave their flasks; without the ongoing magical processes contained therein, they would die at once.

"My creator!" the creature chirped, acknowledging Bartido.

"Use your clairvoyance," Bartido said. "I want to see what's inside this house."

"Sounds interesting!"

A homunculus's perceptions, when magically enhanced, essentially extended through an Astral energy rather than visible light, then linked that sense, perceiving the mana flow in an area, back to reality. This allowed it to see through obstacles, perceive places in far remote locations unless protected by some kind of shielding magic or if an area was a "dead zone" completely free of mana. It was a pure side effect of this that the linking of Astral essence to the physical world made it possible to harm Astral creatures with physical attacks—a side effect that served alchemists well, as most Alchemy familiars could not otherwise touch the Astral.

It was the honumculus's vision that Bartido wanted now, though. Through the link between magician and familiar, he could see what it saw, extending his gaze through the house, taking note of the parts he hadn't seen on his visit and the locations of the sleeping servants as well as the Proseccos. There appeared to be only one other servant besides the butler, a woman who shared his bed. Probably his wife served as cook and housekeeper, a common partnership for servants. The Proseccos, likewise, were asleep in the master bedroom upstairs, so there wasn't going to be a better time to do this.

Unfortunately, the homunculus couldn't keep it going indefinitely, and the image faded from Bartido's mind. But it had been enough for him to know how to proceed. He dismissed the Rune, its yellow glow being too dangerous to leave sitting around for witnesses to notice.

The back door was locked, but it was also barred. The windows, likewise, were sealed with heavy shutters. The city was a dangerous place, after all, where thieves could be found regularly. Unfortunately for the Proseccos, their security awareness did not extend to the second-floor windows. The antique style of the buildings in the Thumb meant that there were any number of protruding cornices and ornamentation around which Bartido could loop the end of a lariat. Climbing up the side of the building was easy, even with a haversack containing various tools slung over his shoulder beneath his features-muffling cloak.

Before addressing himself to the break-in, though, he took the time to focus on the potential traps. As a magician, he was sensitive to the flow of magical energies, and was able to see various wards and Runes that would be invisible to normal sight. Anyone could see an active Rune like his Laboratory, but many wards did not show up to the naked eye. To a magician's examination, though, it would be a different matter.

Nothing.

Which was, of course, what he'd expect to find if the Proseccos were what they claimed. Magical wards were generally found only on the houses of magicians, or on those of the wealthy who could pay for them, not common citizens.

If they really were necromancers—and not just accidental ones in the sense that Master Dundee had suggested—then they were being thorough in their imposture. Maybe they felt the risk of having wards was more than the benefit that could be gained.

 _Which doesn't mean that there aren't any wards inside_ , he cautioned himself. _They might just have wanted it so that causal passerby couldn't see their magic._ He definitely didn't want to charge in recklessly and fall into a trap for his trouble. It was a sobering thought for a young man whose preferred cause of action in any situation was _to_ act—to do _something_. And a man hanging off a rope on the side of someone else's house in the dead of night was rarely in the mood for a speech about patience, either.

Whatever Bartido's next step was, though, the first thing that he needed to do was to get through the window. Luckily, it was a casement type; if at all possible he wanted to avoid leaving any trace of a break-in that would put the Proseccos on guard. Luckier still, it was secured by a latch and not a bolt, so it was easy to slip a flat piece of metal between the frame and the window and flip the latch open. He swung himself inside and stowed the rope and the forcing-tool in his pack, then got out a small dark-lantern.

The point of a dark-lantern was to give focused illumination in one direction only so that it didn't show from the sides, making it a favorite tool with scouts, spies, and burglars alike. This one was simple, a metal frame with a wooden handle fixed on the back, and a candle (to prevent spilling oil if angling the lantern up or down) backed by a reflector that surrounded it on three sides to focus the light. The fourth side was covered by a hinged shutter that could be opened for strong light, shut completely, or anywhere in between. Bartido lit the lantern, then narrowed the shutter so that only a thin beam of illumination emerged from the slit.

"All right, then," he murmured. "Let's see what I can see."

With the benefit of his familiar's clairvoyance, he had a good idea of the layout of the rooms, so he made his way into the house with purpose and care. It was slow going because he was constantly looking out with both his magical and physical senses: it made no difference if he was caught by an alarm ward or, for example, a trick stair designed to creak loudly if too much pressure was placed upon it. Time seemed to slow to a crawl; he had no idea if he was spending seconds or minutes making each step. Sweat trickled down the back of his neck every time the candle guttered or the old house groaned as it settled.

Nonetheless, he made his way downstairs without incident. Whether the Proseccos were guilty or innocent, they were no more security-conscious than the average person. That didn't fit with the idea of them being conniving cheats, but then again, he supposed that confidence artists were more used to defending themselves with words than with violence. Too, if the servants weren't their confederates, leaving locks and traps and other unusual security everywhere would lead to suspicion, and probably gossip with other local servants. There was no point in protecting a secret in a way that the protection gave it away.

The door to the anteroom was unlocked, and Bartido moved through it carefully to the séance room. There he met his first obstacle. When he swept aside the curtain, he found that the archway was blocked by a pair of sliding panels that met in the middle and were quite clearly locked.

As there was no sign of a magical trap, he figured that mundane means would have to suffice. Brute force would get the job done as the panels seemed fairly lightweight, but forcing them open with a pry-bar or charging them down would leave unmistakable traces of his presence and probably make enough noise to rouse the whole household. There was probably a magical way to raise a barrier to keep sound from passing, but he didn't know it and in any event that didn't solve the first problem. He could be reckless sometimes, sure, but he at least liked to think that he wasn't out-and-out stupid.

Instead, he took a small leather case from his pack. It was about the size of one a valet kept small grooming tools such as clippers and files in, and frankly the shape of some of the lockpicks and forcing-tools inside weren't too different from those used in the care of fingernails.

There was probably some thematic metaphor to be made there, but Bartido had never gone in for poetry and symbolism, not even dirty limericks about music-hall performers.

He didn't have a lot of practical experience at picking locks, but he'd practiced diligently before being sent to the Magic Academy. The treasures there had not been the kind one found hidden behind mundane locks, but the training served him well now. A professional thief, he suspected, would have needed much less time to get the job done than the few minutes Bartido took, but he had the lock open without incident. Before he slid open the door, though, he mentally commanded his homunculus to use the clairvoyance trick again. The inside of the séance room unfolded before his mental "eye," and he was glad that he'd been cautious. Thin cords ran from the backs of the panels up through holes in the ceiling. Undoubtedly they were connected to alarm wires, ready to rouse the Proseccos or even trigger traps if the panels were slid open without deactivating them.

The clairvoyance also revealed, though, that the séance room had only one apparent exit. Unless the Proseccos typically left the room by a hidden door (or walked through the walls in Astral form as a sufficiently skilled necromancer could do), there had to be a way to set and release the alarm from the outside of the panels.

_Well, either that or it's always on, since they don't care if they set off a sufficiently quiet alarm in their own house._

That unpleasant thought proved not to be the case, however, as he soon found hidden catches in the carving of the panels which, when turned, allowed slack into the lines. He was then able to slide the panels open without triggering anything. Bartido picked up the dark-lantern and shone it inside.

By the lantern light, the séance room looked much as it had the night before in the dimness of the lamp. Atmospheric illumination, of course, both to set the stage emotionally and to offer concealment for anything the medium wanted to do.

A more obvious reason for the light scheme was to allow accomplices to act. With the light dim and in the center of the room, the sides and corners were in shadow, shadow where other parties could act and play tricks.

But he didn't think so.

For one thing, the clairvoyant look at the layout of the house had verified that there were no secret cabinets between the walls or similar tricks. That didn't rule out the possibility of a panel or trap door leading into another part of the house, but it strongly reduced the likelihood. For one thing, it was far too difficult to keep light from leaking in from parts of the house that were in use. For another, it was unnecessarily complex. If a third party, a necromancer, had slipped into the room to use a talisman or the like, why not just have them at the table like Domenic Prosecco was? And the ghost-light might well give them away. He didn't think this con, whatever it involved, was badly planned.

Whomever was responsible, be it Addeline Prosecco or someone else, they weren't going to operate in a way where a chance bit of bad luck could give it all away. Maybe once, or even twice, but not night after night, client after client. That wasn't how Addeline Prosecco would operate.

_So how are they doing it?_

He gritted his teeth, eyes sweeping the room. He'd gone to the trouble of breaking in, and while he hadn't tripped any traps, he could get caught at any time. A bad dream, a rattling shutter, any number of things could rouse one of the household and send them after Bartido. And even if he got away and left no identification, the fact that he'd been going around investigating, asking questions of everyone in sight, would make it relatively easy for the Proseccos to figure out what his interest in them was if not necessarily that he'd been the burglar.

Standing around wasting time wasn't a viable option.

He needed to think logically, rationally. The medium—or someone—had summoned several ghosts. The ghosts had appeared in the room above the table; they hadn't come from somewhere else, not up through the table or down from the ceiling or through the wall. Summoned ghosts could pass through physical objects, but they couldn't turn invisible. So, the point of summoning was the table.

What did that mean?

 _Argh, I wish Hiram was here!_ The two friends actually complemented each other's abilities well: Bartido was impulsive, but imaginative, where Hiram was calm and rational, but stodgy and constrained. As a team they covered for each other's weaknesses. Only, Hiram wasn't there. He was a prince of the country Bartido had been spying against! And that left Bartido to try and sort everything out by himself. _So quit whining and do it!_

Master Dundee had been right about one thing: the answer lay within the existing laws of magic. It wasn't believable that the Proseccos had invented some entirely new type of power over the dead, nor were they performing miracles. That meant a talisman, a Rune, or ritual magic. Either the talisman-wielder was at the table, or the Rune was (even if the _magician_ was not; a magician could use one of their own Runes even at a distance), or the key site of the ritual was.

He didn't think that it was a talisman, or more accurately two. It was _possible_ to do some kind of sleight-of-hand despite the circle of held hands, but not _easy_ , and making such talismans was master-level work. Though summoning specific ghosts on demand... Still, the need to bind specific ghosts in advance seemed to put paid to that theory.

Dundee, for his part, had favored ritual magic. This explanation satisfied the "how" inasmuch as it eliminated the need for apparently missing elements, but when a master of Necromancy has to speculate that the so-called ritual is a _new_ one that includes never-before discovered principles, then it didn't sound like an explanation so much as it did groping in the dark.

So that left Runes. There was a lot to like about the idea. Bartido himself could have cast a Hades Gate and started calling up ghosts on the spot, one after another.

_All right, if I double-checked my grimoire I could; it's been a while._

The questions surrounding ritual magic applied to a Rune as well, but at least a Rune solved the fundamental problem that no one had performed any discernable magic ritual. If a Rune had been set in advance, then it took only an act of will by the magician to activate. The magician didn't even have to be in the room—the delay between summonings might have been for effect, but might also have been because the timing with a distant confederate wasn't precise.

But if it was a Rune, where was it? Certainly not on the table. And not on the floor underneath it, either; it would have been plain to see. The fancy tablecloth didn't hang down far enough to block that...

In the next moment, Bartido was down on his knees, scrambling under the table even as the idea hit him. He turned the lantern up at the table's underside, and there it was, inlaid directly into the wood with some kind of inset pieces instead of being merely drawn or carved. By using a pre-crafted design, it could be kindled with magic easily even though it was upside-down, merely by letting the mana flow along the existing pattern.

Empowering the Rune would cause it to shine, of course, but that was what the table-hangings were for. When the séance circle was assembled around the table, they wouldn't be able to see anything; the only light would go straight down to the floor. And if the magician deliberately let the empowered Rune lapse, it would prevent any telltale light from showing once the guests had gotten up and would have a better vantage point. It was no different in that respect than what Bartido had done with his Laboratory in the alley.

The Rune itself definitely wasn't an ordinary Hades Gate. He recognized some of the same elements, but the inlaid design was much more complex. What that symbolism was meant to accomplish, he couldn't say. It was a good bet that it had something to do with how individual ghosts had been summoned, but the exact particulars were far beyond him.

There was no question; he had to get this Rune copied down so that someone with more knowledge of Necromancy than he had could help him decipher it. Unfortunately, pen, paper, and ink weren't items he'd thought to bring along in his housebreaking kit.

 _Looks like I'll have to be a burglar after all_ , he decided, and went back to the anteroom. In a few moments he found paper and a pencil in the drawer of a small side-table. He went back into the séance room, closing the sliding panels behind him, then ducked back beneath the hangings.

Trying to sketch out the Rune by the light of his lantern wasn't going to be easy. The way the device focused the light was fine for its purpose, but bad for general lighting, particularly when having to angle the light upwards. He could tip the table over onto its side, but wasn't sure he could get it properly replaced to hide the traces of his presence.

He almost slapped himself on the forehead when he realized that there was a much easier solution. This was a Rune, and he was a magician. It had obviously been prepared in advance to accept mana; that was the point of such a design. He didn't actually have to know the Rune to cast it when it had been drawn in advance. And while magicians who used such pre-made Runes often omitted elements that they'd draw in themselves, that wouldn't be the case this time since the user had to activate it while sitting at the table.

Bartido reached out and touched the Rune gingerly. With practice, he could probably do this blind, the way the medium was apparently doing, but for the first try he definitely needed to see what he was doing, to watch as he let mana flow into the design, saw it coming to life as trails of pale blue fire ran out from his fingers along the pattern, curving, bending, filling in the Rune until at last it was complete, a sensation like a chime ringing in his mind telling Bartido that he'd finished the work.

Now it was easy to see. Not only was the Rune plainly outlined in ghostly blue, but the light it shed also gave him plenty of illumination by which to draw his sketch and correct any mistakes. He worked steadily and methodically, wanting to hurry but knowing that the job was too important to make careless mistakes in doing, and with his lack of understanding of the underlying magical principles working against him. He could only make a copy, never able to anticipate what the next part might be, and had to be twice as careful because of that. But after at least twenty minutes of work, he finally had it finished.

After double-checking his work one last time, Bartido crawled out from beneath the table. He rolled the paper into a thin tube so that any creases from folding wouldn't mark or confuse the design, then tucked it away. He then sat down at the table to test his theory. The light didn't show. He glanced down, and realized that his lap, the chair, and the edge of the table blocked his view; he had to lean back and to the side to get a look down at the floor. That confirmed it; if the magician waited until the séance circle was seated and holding hands before kindling the Rune, there would be virtually no chance of anyone ever knowing it was there.

He got up, walked back to the door, and turned around. Now it was different; he could see the illumination plainly enough from underneath the table. That provided the last confirmation he needed for the timing. The séance trick could be efficiently worked by conventional Rune magic—if the medium or a confederate was a magician, and they had a specially prepared table. The draperies kept the Rune-light from spilling out into people's laps, and the magic did the rest, summoning up the ghosts.

He was about to dismiss the Rune and leave, but then a thought struck him. He might not have the knowledge of Necromancy needed to figure out the underlying design for the Rune, but there was an easier way for him to solve that riddle on his own, without calling in an expert. A simple way, really.

His mind reached out to the Rune, and he activated it.

Bartido felt the rush of mana leaving him as the Rune tapped his reserves. It hadn't been much, he realized, no more draining than summoning a ghost in the usual way. Maybe that was the way of it—a ghost was a ghost, no matter what else was involved. Or maybe it was the fact that he hadn't had any specific spirit in mind, so the Rune was just operating like a normal Hades Gate and giving him a random summoning?

Whatever the reason, _something_ was certainly happening. The pulsing blue radiance from beneath the table showed that the Rune's magic was active, the summoning taking place...and then the light faded again to its normal glow. Above the table floated the fiery shape of a ghost.

To all intents and purposes, it seemed like an ordinary spirit. Bartido could feel the link between summoner and familiar within him; there was no question of anything unusual there.

"So, are you anyone special, then?" he asked jauntily.

As soon as he'd said it, he felt another surge of mana leaving him, flowing out to the Rune. The spirit drifted towards him. As soon as it had cleared the table, it began to expand, the blue fire taking on resolution, shape, a definite image just as he had seen on the previous night.

This time, though, the figure was no child, but that of an adult. Perhaps not surprisingly, it was a beautiful woman, with a lushly curved body clad only in a skimpy white negligee almost as translucent as the ghostly flesh that was left revealed. Blonde hair swirled in a halo around her head, wild and untamed.

Had those been the only details, Bartido would probably have been very pleased with the result of his summoning. But the vine that snaked around her body, embracing her as tightly as a lover, blue roses sprouting here and there along its length and thorns sinking into her flesh, gave rise to quite a different emotion. Likewise, the crimson staff she held lightly in her hands, its tip capped by a human skull, gave evidence of the kind of fate that Bartido was tempting.

Despite himself, he stumbled back a step before catching his footing.

"L-Lujei!"

The ghost witch laughed gaily.

"Well, well! What do we have here, Mevy? I remember this little mousey well! He's the one who came to the Tower and lied to poor, dear Gammel about seeking magical training, while all the while he was slinking about, planning to steal _my_ Philosopher's Stone." She swung the head of the staff around to point at Bartido's chest. "So what do you think we should do with such a bad, bad boy?"

"Oh dear, oh dear," the staff said woefully.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Lujei's staff being named Mevy comes from her guest appearance in Soul Nomad and the World Eaters.


	11. Chapter 11

"Grand Witch Lujei!" Bartido rallied a little. His heart was still in his throat, but past the initial moment of shock, he could speak, he could act. Which was good, because he'd have to do one or the other or both in order to get out of this mess alive. Just sitting around wouldn't accomplish anything but make him a target. "I...didn't expect to see you."

"Your kind never does," Lujei said. "Smile and bow and speak golden words between kisses, only to walk away and never look back when you're done with us. Oh, I know you, Bartido Ballentyne. Your poisonous charm that turns words of love into acts of betrayal, just like my dear Mevy."

Her fingers slid along the bare white curve of the skull in an almost caressing gesture.

Bartido had only seen the ghost of Lujei Piche a couple of times at the Tower, always in a teacher's company—for which he was very thankful. Even so, she was unforgettable. He knew her story, too, of how she'd schemed to take the Philosopher's Stone for herself after the Archmage's fall, and how her apprentice and lover had murdered her to prevent that, a political assassination urged on by their kingdom's government.

"But now," she continued gaily, "the winds of chance have brought me right to you. And who am I to deny the offering of good fortune?"

"Hey, I never lied to you," Bartido protested. "I didn't say more than two words to you while you were talking to Dr. Chartreuse!"

"Mmm, you were a quiet little mousey at that." She planted the staff on the floor and whirled herself around it, almost like she was dancing. "Go on; if you're entertaining enough I might be persuaded to make things easier for you. Fun gained for fun lost, you might say."

Which neatly summarized the reason why Bartido had barely spoken to the ghost witch, despite her being intelligent, powerful, and stunningly gorgeous, three things he found extremely attractive in a woman. She was also, however, scary as all hell and quite possibly insane.

"I'm not sure that sounds like a very powerful incentive, Mistress," remarked the skull. Mevy, apparently, was the lover who'd murdered her; she'd come back as a ghost and taken her revenge—not just killing him (slowly and painfully) but trapping his soul in undeath with her besides.

"Then I'll get to have my original fun, darling, so I really can't lose at all, can I?" She smiled lazily, like a cat who'd learned how to open milk bottles.

"I didn't lie to you," Bartido repeated. "Sure, I was after the Philosopher's Stone, but it wasn't you I was trying to steal it from. I wanted it for my country, because we were afraid of what would happen if the government of _your_ country got ahold of it. You should know better than anyone what they're like. If they'd send an assassin after you, then what would they do to Albion?"

"And what do I care about Albion? It's a boring place, with too many sheep."

"I would think you'd care about giving the people who murdered you exactly what they wanted."

"And I do. But _you_ fail to understand the most important thing. The Philosopher's Stone belonged to _me_. You might have been the better choice among the thieves out to steal it, but you are still at the end of it all just another thief. When you have rats in your pantry, you don't spend your time deciding which is the cutest one; you get rid of all the pests."

She drifted closer to him as she was talking, and Bartido found himself taking another step back, until his shoulders were pressing against the wall.

He couldn't understand what she was even doing there, what twist of fate had caused the Rune to call out to her—or for her to answer. The only thing that he could even imagine was that his curiosity over the Rune's function (which was, after all, the reason he'd activated it in the first place) had been enough of a force in his mind that his brain had, however fleetingly, thought of the people he knew who might explain it. Lujei made Nathan Dundee and Opalneria Rain look like apprentices when it came to Necromancy, and unlike them she was a spirit herself and so theoretically reachable by necromantic magic.

_Yeah, well, it's also a theory that I wouldn't have been stupid enough to consciously try to summon the ghost of a Grand Witch who'd as likely to want to fillet me as answer my questions!_

"Mmm, does the cat have your tongue, mousey? You've been quiet for a bit now, and one of the problems of being dead is that it's so _dull_. Haunting the same halls for year after year... Did you know that there are four hundred and thirty-seven flagstones in the floor of the second hall above the dormitory rooms?"

But he had summoned her, not by deliberately seeking out Lujei, but by tampering with unknown magic. Magic, moreover, that had shown the ability to do something previously believed impossible and which was therefore almost guaranteed to be potentially dangerous. And he'd blundered right in, like an apprentice trying to call up a fairy and summoning a dragon he couldn't hope to control.

_Control._

"If you like, I could help you make that 'cat got your tongue' idiom the truth. I do so worry about the way idioms can be confusing, don't you?" Lujei purred.

He hadn't noticed it before, because Lujei's appearance had been so shocking, but now he realized that the link was still there, the bond between master and summoned familiar. It had been present, of course, when the ghost had first manifested, but it was still there.

Which meant that he had a chance.

One chance, maybe. If it failed, he knew he wouldn't get another. The difference in power between them was too great. His only chance was surprise, and the hope that Lujei herself hadn't noticed what the link might mean.

Bartido gathered his will, steeling himself like never before. He'd brought unruly chimeras to heel in the past, a real struggle particularly when he'd first learned to create them, but this was something else entirely. He'd be pitting himself not against a raging beast, but a master magician with vastly more experience at this than he had.

In one sudden burst, he hurled everything he had, everything he was at her, the entire force of his gathered will as he cried, "Begone!"

And she vanished.

Bartido blinked, straining with every physical and magical sense that he had for any trace of her presence. He couldn't believe he'd won at first; it felt more like the handfighting trick of ducking out of the way of an opponent who was expecting a clash so that they spent their force against empty air and went stumbling or even falling, vulnerable. After a couple of minutes, though, he was forced to accept that she really wasn't there. Even the familiar bond was gone, the link to the ghost vanished along with her.

He let out a long sigh of relief, feeling his shoulders and back relax the tension he hadn't known he was putting on them. His right hand ached, and he realized that he'd been clenching it around the lantern handle the entire time—probably a good thing, as he might well have dropped it otherwise, and perhaps set the house alight. He passed it over to his left hand and shook the right one to try and get its circulation going again.

Feeling a little more like himself, Bartido dismissed the Rune as he had the Laboratory earlier. He certainly wasn't going to try any more experiments of that sort! One narrow escape was more than enough.

_If I did escape._

Somewhat belatedly, he realized that even though he'd been able to return Lujei to wherever he'd summoned her from, he might still have landed himself in danger. The confrontation with the ghost witch hadn't been silent. They'd talked, for one thing, three different voices with three different tonal qualities to catch people's attention. Had Lujei raised her voice in anger as well? Had Bartido cried out in surprise at her appearance? Had his "Begone!" been an emotion-filled shout instead of a command?

The fact was, he might have already roused the household, masters and servants alike, through his carelessness.

The easy way to check would have been to call on his homunculus again and look through the house too see where people were. Unfortunately, that was impossible; his familiar had used all of its mana already and could do nothing more until it rested. If Bartido _had_ the few minutes it would take the homunculus, he wouldn't _need_ the power, because having the time would be proof that the Proseccos and their servants were still abed.

Bartido had no intention of waiting passively to know his fate. Cautiously, he slipped open the panels a tiny crack, and on seeing no one waiting for him in the anteroom he slipped through and closed the archway off behind him. It was a work of a moment to reset the alarm cords, but the lock was a trickier matter. He wavered for a few seconds over whether to spend the time, then decided he ought to try, since if he'd woken anyone up they'd already know that someone had been in the house, but if not he still wanted to do his best to avoid leaving traces. He still didn't hear any footsteps or shouts of alarm, saw no light from the corridor, so it seemed likely it was worth a chance.

It seemed to take even longer to work the picks in the lock this time. He didn't know whether that was because locking was a more difficult task than unlocking, or because nerves had left him clumsy in the aftermath of the encounter with Lujei. He got it done, though, and left the anteroom.

The inability to bar doors after he'd left meant that he'd have to leave the way he came. His nerves were on fire as he crept upstairs and down the hall, but nothing happened, no one jumped out to confront him, no squad of ghostly familiars faded through the walls. Instead, he was able to make his escape without incident, even down to re-latching the window with a looped piece of string, and slipped away into the night.

~X X X~

Michael Carstairs sat, shoulders hunched, on the driver's seat of the rented carriage. The river air was clammy, and he was glad of the cape he wore over his jacket. He'd thrown it on for anonymity rather than warmth, but it was doing dual purpose now.

Ordinarily, waiting alone for someone to return from business was among the most boring of jobs, but Carstairs couldn't even surrender to that. His awareness of the possible consequences kept intruding, but even worse was that fact that ultimately it all rested on someone else. If Bartido was successful, everything would be fine. If he was caught...well, Carstairs probably wouldn't be defrocked, but he could say farewell to any career aspirations. To say nothing of possible punishment under the ordinary criminal laws of Albion! He wasn't even sure what the penalty was for assisting in a burglary.

The minutes crept by, therefore, with agonizing slowness. More than once he'd checked the time just to reassure himself that it was passing at all; he did so again, slipping out his pocket-watch and opening the silver case. Forty-seven minutes since Bartido had left him waiting here. Forty-seven minutes in which anything could have happened!

_Where is he? What's taking him so long?_

"Here, now, what's all this?"

Carstairs nearly jumped out of his shoes, a little gasp bursting from his lips. He swung towards the direction of the thick, gruff voice and found himself looking down into Bartido's grinning face.

"I'm having some very unpriestly thoughts right now," he growled at his friend. "You nearly scared a year off my life."

"What's an expedition like this without a little excitement? Besides, it makes it even. I had quite a scare myself."

"You didn't—?" Carstairs caught himself before saying, "get caught" out loud, where an unexpected witness might hear.

Bartido opened the carriage door and tossed his haversack inside.

"No, nothing like that."

He closed the carriage door, then climbed up on the seat next to his friend so they could keep talking while underway.

"Let's get going."

Carstairs loosened the reins and urged the horses into motion. The wheels rattled over the cobblestones.

"I found out how they're doing it. You were right; it was Necromancy. I'm not really sure of the details, though." He shook his head. "It was an experience I'm not going to forget any time soon."

"You confronted them?"

"No, I didn't meet them at all. With luck, they won't even know that anyone was there. But I got a look into some of their magic."

"Oh, I see." He probably didn't, Bartido thought, but that was only to be expected.

"It solves your theological problem, at least," the magician pointed out.

"It does? I don't understand."

"The problem was what the ghosts were saying at the séance, if I remember correctly. They were giving eyewitness, or soul-witness, or whatever, testimony about what comes after death. The ghosts are summoned familiars, though. Now, a magician has more or less control over familiars based on the magician's power and skill and the familiar's nature. But the magician is still the one in control. They can compel the spirit to act, to answer—and to tell pretty lies that _just happen_ to mesh with what the spiritualists are telling the paying customers. It's very straightforward, really."

"Then we have them!"

" _If_ we can expose them as being magicians. Which will help in another way, too: they claim that they contact the dead through an entirely new kind of power, a special spiritual ability. Showing this ability up as orthodox Rune magic makes them liars and cheats instead of prophets."

Carstairs nodded.

"Of course, exposing one fake won't destroy the spiritualism movement. There'll be some people who, though accepting that the Proseccos are liars, will still believe that they were just one bad apple. That's just the way that people can be."

"That's a depressing thought."

"Still, there will be a much larger number who hear about this and will turn their backs on it. They might have been entertained, might even think the show was worth the price, like a night at the opera. But they won't be led by them into heresy, and that's the part that's really important. A person only follows another out of fear, love, duty, or respect. Exposure will strip them of that respect." He paused, then added, "Thank you, Bartido. I know that I've been a little difficult about what you did tonight, but you were right."

His friend's obvious sincerity made it hard for Bartido to say what he had to.

"Damn it, Michael, how am I supposed to give you grief when you say things like that?"

"I consider that an added benefit."

Bartido rolled his eyes.

"The problem is, we can't expose them just yet."

"What? Why?"

"There's still too many pieces left unanswered. The specifics of what they're doing, for one."

"I thought you just told me that you'd learned they were using magic."

"Well, yes, but the point is, _what_ magic? I found the Rune that they're using, but that's not the same thing as understanding the mechanisms behind it. Or to put it another way, I figured out how they're playing the trick, but I don't yet know what the trick is. This Rune lets them do something that stumped even Master Dundee. That's not something I can just nod and walk away from."

 _Maybe instead of ordering Lujei to leave, I should have tried showing her the Rune._ New magic might even have been entertaining enough for her to put aside whatever grudge she held towards him. And after all, that was his best guess as to how he'd wound up facing her in the first place.

"Apart from that, there's another problem," he continued. What was past was past; there was no point in dwelling on it further.

"Oh?"

"What they're up to."

"I should have thought that was obvious."

"Money, yes. It's the mechanics of getting it out of this trust they've set up that interests me. They've already gotten an advocate involved; are there other players as well? Other mediums, maybe, using the same magical technique to convince their customers?"

"You mean, some kind of network of these people?"

"Why not? You said it yourself; spiritualism isn't just about one leader. And if the stakes are high enough, well, criminal organizations and business swindles are nothing new. I really wish I'd had a chance to search through the Proseccos' private papers. There might be incriminating correspondence or accounting records that would explain a lot of this."

"Why didn't you? You had the opportunity when you broke in."

Bartido shook his head.

"No, there's a real difference there. On the one hand, I didn't know where to start looking, especially if they get sneaky and use false bottoms in drawers, hidden compartments, and so on. That's a job for when you have time to work uninterrupted, not in a house full of sleeping people that might wake up at any minute. Plus, it'd be almost impossible to do that kind of search without leaving traces. I want the Proseccos to wake up tomorrow and go about their day without even knowing I was there."

"I see."

Bartido chuckled softly at his friend.

"Really, Michael, for a fellow who was so against my doing this at all, you sound positively disappointed that I'm not committing more extensive burglaries." He clapped the priest on the shoulder. "But don't worry, I've got good news for you! This was just our first stop tonight."

"You and I have vastly different definitions of 'good news,' Bartido."


	12. Chapter 12

The good news about Bartido's second breaking-and-entering of the night was that it didn't need to be secret. Oh, he didn't want to be _caught_ at it, true enough, but the point was that for this excursion it wasn't important for him to conceal the break-in's existence. Trenton Argyle, after all, handled matters for more than one client, and theft wouldn't necessarily point to any one specific matter as the reason for the burglary. Indeed, with a little work it was likely Bartido could make it look like he was after something entirely different, sending Argyle and any thief-takers off on a wild goose chase.

It also was useful because the owners of his building took security seriously, even for a vacant office on the upper stories. Despite 3A being unoccupied and therefore the perfect place to break into, the windows were locked and barred. But since it wasn't necessary to pass, ghostlike, through the walls (and since he didn't know enough Necromancy to summon skullmages to work that trick anyway), he could resort to more forceful methods. While the window itself was too much work to be a feasible point of entry, there was an ornamental fanlight over it. Perched on the ledge, he sliced out the glass with a special cutter, tapping the pieces into the room so they didn't drop and shatter noisily on the street. Though the business and financial district tended to close doors sharply at the end of business hours, Six Gates was still one of the best-patrolled districts in the city, as the people had both the money and the motivation to hire watchmen who were both reasonably competent and plentiful in number.

Unlike the bars securing the window, those of the fanlight were strictly an ornamental framework. Bartido slipped a screw-jack between them, and in a few minutes had created an opening large enough for him to squeeze through. He fed his pack in, then wriggled his way between the bars.

The door to the empty suite had a decent lock on it, but Bartido got through it readily enough and went downstairs to the offices of Trenton Argyle, Counselor at Law. Since its lock was virtually identical, his experience served him well, and he was soon playing the beam of his lantern around the reception room.

The room was fairly bare—a desk for the receptionist, a wilting aspidistra in the corner, an indifferent landscape on the wall. But the part that Bartido found interesting wasn't something that could be seen by ordinary eyes. In the center of the carpet was a Rune, waiting quiescently.

For a moment he wondered why the Rune was set in the reception room instead of the inner office, before he realized the flaws in his question. On the one hand, nothing said that there couldn't be other defenses in the inner rooms, while on the other hand keeping any magical battles out here would prevent damage to valuable records and legal documents.

With that momentary diversion set aside, Bartido turned his mind to the problem at hand. The trap hadn't yet tripped, or else it would be visible to anyone and unleashing any summoned familiars or magical effects against him. Since he hadn't been paralyzed, shocked, incinerated, or set upon, then he was off to a good start.

He wondered what the mechanism was. Obviously, clients crossing the offices during the day weren't setting the ward off. Probably it was the locking and unlocking of the office door that was the significant act. Locking the door would activate the ward and unlocking deactivate it. Probably the correct key had to be used; it would be easy enough to link the Rune to a specific key or keys, which would protect against the kind of breaking and entering that Bartido had just done.

So the question became, could he avoid it? If he was going to trigger the trap he'd want to prepare Runes and familiars in advance. That would take mana, and he was already down some from casting the two Runes and summoning two familiars at the Proseccos' house. Nor were there any handy crystals around the building from what he could see, those places where the natural flow of mana congealed and built up, ready to be extracted by a magician. He'd be limited to his own resources, and those weren't likely to be up to the task he expected of them.

Of course, the kind of protections found here weren't likely to be up to the standard of those found at the Silver Star Tower, either, so Bartido probably didn't _have_ to be up to his own top level of ability. But even so, he didn't know what might be waiting in the next room to expend that mana on if he used it here. Decisions!

He was actually a little surprised that the ward hadn't already activated. After all, he'd stepped into the room, which was the most obvious thing for it to be guarding. Bartido could see if it was protecting something like a safe or file cabinet, but there was nothing like that in the reception room. Surely it couldn't just confine itself to working when an intruder stepped on the actual Rune? That would leave too much space uncovered. Why, Bartido could walk to the door on the left-hand wall in a direct line without ever touching the Rune; only the path to the one directly opposite, behind the desk, crossed over it.

 _I wouldn't design it that way_ , he thought, and he didn't believe an intelligent magician would, either. To say nothing of a cautious, close-fisted advocate protecting the guilty secrets of his clients. But at the same time, it seemed that _some_ shortcut had to have been taken, else his first steps onto the bare floorboards beneath his feet would have—

 _Ah!_ It hit him in a flash—the _floor_. The room had a large carpet in the center, with a border of six to eight inches of bare floor around the edges. It was the _carpet_ that had been warded, not the _room_.

He thought about that for a second. Was there a reason why that might be? Wards and passive enchantments weren't his specialty, though he could craft and unleash a chimera with the best of them. Maybe the Rune had to be open to the air to work? Or maybe it didn't, but it was set to ward whatever it was drawn on and the magician who set it hadn't thought to move the furniture and roll back the carpet. Even magicians—especially those who were the type who studied and learned by rote—could sometimes have trouble thinking outside the "box" of false limitations.

Or maybe it was just that the ward had a radius of effect of a certain distance and that radius didn't reach the door. If that was the case, since the room was longer than it was wide, the sides might be warded while the front wasn't. That would put Bartido in for a nasty surprise if he tried going around the edge.

 _Guessing's getting me nowhere._ It came down to this: did he believe he could circle the room safely or not? If not, then he should set Runes and create familiars now, to be ready for what would happen, and send a blob or the like to set the ward off on purpose.

He shook his head sharply. He didn't want to burn mana here if he didn't have to. He might not have a choice, it was true, but he was going to at least try to accomplish the outcome that he wanted. With quick steps, as if afraid any hesitation would cause him to have second thoughts, he circled the room, keeping his boots away from the carpet.

Nothing happened.

A broad grin spread across Bartido's face as he realized that he'd won his bet with himself. It _had_ been the carpet! Secure in how to handle the first room, at least, he tried the side door. It, too, was locked; Argyle wasn't trusting his security to a single door even with the Rune protecting the reception room. He was definitely the cautious type, but given that he was apparently involved in helping magic-using confidence tricksters work a scam on a financial scale usually reserved for stock swindles, he had good reason for his concern.

The lock on the side door was a good one, better than that on the suite entrance. Forcing it was still within Bartido's abilities, though, and he eventually got it open. As it was, while it had cost him time, the lock probably saved his neck. Had the door been unlocked, he'd have probably walked right in, still flush with excitement at the success of his decision to risk circling the carpet.

Had he done that, he'd likely have triggered the ward on the floor of the next room before noticing it.

Since he'd had to stop and deal with the lock, though, he'd been slowed down, and that made him look before entering. It looked to be a kind of records room, with rows of wooden filing cabinets. There was no carpet here, just bare planks and the Rune.

Short of clambering on top of the file cabinets, Bartido couldn't see any way to avoid this ward. Since he didn't feel like trying any acrobatics that he didn't have to, he decided to shut the door and save the file room for later if he needed it. Instead, he circled around to the other door in the reception room, the one opposite the entrance.

This door, unsurprisingly, was locked as well, but this time a look inside showed no magical traps. It was obviously Argyle's office, so Bartido supposed he didn't want to put it at risk. _Which means that maybe he doesn't keep anything worth protecting in here...or maybe that he's just being more subtle._

He let the lantern-light play around the room, illuminating the large, ornate mahogany desk that looked like it belonged in the office of a Court minister rather than an ordinary advocate. Trenton Argyle was evidently a man with an overinflated sense of his own worth, or alternately a keen eye for the image he presented to his clients.

Bartido suspected the former. The desk, the fancy chairs, they were overdone for the size and construction of the room, so that they stood out too much, not encouraging an image of power but one of discord, of clumsy overreaching. The kind of man who would be persuaded to help with an illegal scheme because it pandered to his ego to pull it off.

 _And now I'm analyzing the character of a man I've never met by looking at his office furniture!_ Bartido couldn't help laughing out loud at himself, the absurdity of it. It didn't take a genius to realize that he wouldn't be thinking anything of the kind—at least not about Argyle's propensity for crime—had he not already known the man was involved in the Proseccos' con. _So how about keeping my mind on what I'm doing and not on some Master Detective nonsense?_

He searched the desk quickly, glancing through the correspondence in the letter-rack and finding nothing relevant, then proceeding to rifle the drawers. He checked for false bottoms and secret compartments, verifying the depth of drawers and sounding suspicious places to test for hollow spots, but found nothing. That actually surprised him; he'd have assumed a man who put a desk like this in his office would be the type to have such tricks, which just went to show what that kind of guesswork disguised as deduction was really worth.

It might be that important papers were simply kept locked up in the files each night, but Bartido wasn't giving up without a fight. He started searching the room, and it wasn't long before he found a false panel in the wall that had been hidden behind a painting of a galleon fighting its way through a storm-tossed sea. Finding the catch to open the panel took only seconds, but he was then confronted by a solid metal door.

"Bloody hell!" Bartido said aloud.

There was no way that he was going to get past those locks with an ordinary set of picks. It could be done with the right tools and the right expertise, since no safe or strongbox was absolute, but Bartido had neither the necessary skill nor the equipment. The safe door might as well have been a wall from his point of view.

 _So maybe I should treat it like a wall,_ he thought.

He turned back to the office, grabbed up the client chairs one by one and moved them to the side, before beginning to draw out a Rune on the floor with his wand. It soon began to shine with alchemic golden light, the translucent image of a balance floating above it, but he did not stop there, instead continuing to add complexity to the design and pour mana into it to build the Engrave to a higher-level version of itself. Only when that was done did he call upon the Rune's power, converting the raw energy of the mana he put into it into metal and magma, putting them together and investing them with an unnatural life. What took shape within the Rune was a golem, a humanoid figure of articulated metal, a clockwork automaton given life by magic beyond the mere tricks of gearing and machining. The oversized head with its dragon-like jaws gleamed from within, from the furnace that provided fire for it to fling at enemies.

Bartido didn't want the golem for fire, though. He wanted it for its physical attributes.

"Golem, tear the door off that compartment!"

The seven-foot-tall steel familiar clanked as it stepped towards the safe, moving slowly but purposefully. Its fingers dug in; there was a terrible grating sound that might have been troublesome had the building—indeed, the neighborhood—not been virtually deserted once business hours were finished. Bartido hoped it didn't carry out of the office, though, to attract the attention of any watchmen. It certainly wouldn't do to break in, dodge magical traps, and get into the safe only to be nabbed by the Charlies!

With a hideous shriek of metal, the golem literally wrenched the door off the safe, hinges and the locking mechanism tearing free from their moorings beneath the familiar's enormous strength. Bartido clenched his fist sharply, giving his arm a little pump in a gesture of victory.

The momentary sense of triumph was thoroughly blown away by the explosion.

The ward had obviously been placed on the inside of the safe, where Bartido hadn't been able to see (he didn't _think_ he'd stopped looking once he'd found the compartment). Its effect was concussive, spreading outward from the safe door, knocking the papers on the desk into the air, making the door rattle in its frame. Bartido received a sharp, buffeting jolt; his head swam and his ears rang from the effect—and he was lucky. He'd been standing behind the golem, and it had been the familiar that took the brunt of the blast, shielding him. The damage was severe; a human burglar would have been seriously hurt, possibly killed. As it was, the golem was barely still functioning; it certainly was not in shape for fighting, so it was a good thing the ward was only that and not a proper Rune, summoning defenders to attack.

Maybe it was the thought, or just a flicker of light in the corner of his eye, that made him swing his head to the left and look out into the reception room.

Where the Rune was flickering and shining with the telltale light of an active summoning, obviously activated by the ward's being set off.

"Destroy that Rune!" he ordered his golem. Obediently it turned, drawing its arm back to load with a flaming sphere of magma to launch at the target. Bartido triggered his own Rune to summon another golem; it wouldn't arrive before whatever the warding Rune was calling but with luck it would show up and help buy time. Familiars summoned without a magician's direct control tended to be very direct, attacking whatever was in front of them before doing anything else.

Bartido, for his part, did not plan to be in front of anything for very long.

He dove for the safe first, not bothering to search but just dumping its entire contents of letters and documents into his haversack, leaving only a couple of sacks of gems or coins that were obviously not what he was after. In less than ten seconds he was swinging the pack back over his shoulder and bolting through the door into the other room.

It almost wasn't enough time.

The first phantom took shape within the Rune as Bartido cleared the door—the first of several, he noted absently, since the pale blue light continued to burn vividly and the figures like tormented souls within continued to dance with upraised arms as if clawing to break out into reality. He didn't slow his steps, but charged straight ahead, ducking a swipe of the ghost-knight's flaming sword that clipped the edge of his trailing cloak and would have done a lot more than just clip him if it had connected. In the next instant, he was through the door and pounding up the stairs.

Disdaining popular wisdom, he glanced back over his shoulder since a phantom's steps were silent (indeed, why it "stepped" at all was a complete mystery to him since phantoms were Astral entities like any other ghost), but in this case the old cliche was wrong: nothing was gaining on him, or even chasing him at all.

He had a pretty good idea as to why. As he'd already thought, familiars without a magician to guide them tended to attack whatever was directly in front of them, and they also tended to go after magical targets rather than people if given the chance. Other familiars and Runes were much more attractive enemies, so Bartido's golem and Engrave were serving as bait to keep the phantoms from turning and pursuing him. Sooner or later they'd be destroyed, since golems couldn't hurt Astral enemies without a homunculus's clairvoyance to back them up, but if Bartido could get away the phantoms didn't have any ability to track him by any special supernatural means. They'd likely stop following him at all if he could get out of the building, since Argyle wouldn't want to answer questions about the undead rampaging through the streets even if properly controlled.

He wasn't going to waste the time he'd been afforded, either. Bartido rushed up the stairs to the suite he'd entered by and ran into the back room of 3A. He bounded up on the sill and was about to reach for the edge of the fanlight before he realized that he wouldn't be able to squeeze through and reach for any kind of purchase to support himself without a sudden increase in agility and experience. He was doing well enough to have gotten this far, but he wasn't a professional contortionist or cat burglar!

In his mind's eye, Bartido felt the destruction of his golem, the damage being inflicted on the magical structure of his Rune. The second golem arrived, and he set the Rune to work on a third, knowing that every bit of bait helped.

The good news was that the grille of sturdy bars covering the window wasn't fixed to the masonry but could be opened from the inside. Unfortunately, it too was locked, against the unlikely chance that a thief could break the glass and reach through the bars to the catch.

_If I get out of this, I'm definitely going to have to get a copy of Purgatory and study it. Being able to walk through walls would be really useful right about now!_

As it was, all he could do was reach for his picks again, since he didn't have another golem handy to rip the bars open and his screw-jack wouldn't be strong enough to make an opening of sufficient size. There was no time to wait leisurely, to make mistakes. He had a minute, two if he was lucky, before an indeterminate number of phantoms came charging into the room after him.

He had to focus. To ignore the fact that he'd never opened a lock quite like this one in the field, only in practice.

To ignore the sensation of his Rune being destroyed, before his third golem could take shape.

To shut out the pointless thought that if he'd prepared in advance to cover a retreat, he'd have at least one homunculus ready to snuff out any number of phantoms with a psychic storm.

To put aside the knowledge that if his Rune had been destroyed that quickly, then at least three phantoms had been summoned, enough to search him out, find, and corner him with relative ease.

To ignore the sensation of the last golem's destruction as he drove the pick past the final pin just...

_There!_

He yanked the grille open, undid the window-hasp, flung up the sash, and clambered out. He hadn't been able to leave the rope behind for fear it would be spotted, so he had to toss a double loop around a protrusion now. Not willing to give any more time, rather than carefully climbing down he half-slid, only occasionally using his feet to keep it from being an uncontrolled fall. The instant his boots hit the ground, he let go of one strand of the rope and pulled the other one to retrieve it. Palms stinging from where they'd been skinned on the rope, he coiled it up and stuffed it under his cloak even as he was running away into the shadows of Six Gates.


	13. Chapter 13

"I thought you said that you weren't going to steal anything?" Carstairs said, arms crossed over his chest. He stood at the door to Bartido's sitting-room, the floor of which had seemingly been turned into one giant desk to judge from the strewn-out paperwork.

"It's not like I had the time to think it through with phantoms breathing down my neck. I almost got used as sword practice for a dead man as it was. And besides, I only grabbed the documents; I left the money behind in Argyle's safe. Honestly, that was kind of dumb of me."

" _Not_ stealing money was dumb?"

"Sure." He set a page aside into a side pile. "It would have looked more like an ordinary theft. Someone after money might grab everything when the ward went off and sort it out later. Leaving the money made it obvious that I was after his papers, information rather than random loot. If he's smart, Argyle's already figured out that I'm after one specific client of his. Fortunately," he added with a sweep of his arm, taking in the mess, "there were a fair number of those."

"And what happens to the ones whom you aren't looking for?"

"Huh?"

"Let me get at it in another way. Is any of what you've found so far, apart from the Proseccos, legitimate business?"

"What? Probably. There's some letters about a joint-stock company, a charter, two wills...They might be shady transactions, but they might not. I mean, I don't know enough about the company, for example, to tell if it's trying to earn profit or just fleece its investors."

"So what are you going to do about it? What if one of the people who made a will dies tomorrow? I presume they refer to large and complex estates or else Argyle wouldn't have kept them in his safe instead of the regular files."

Bartido looked up at his friend, blinking in surprise.

"Michael, it's not like I'm going to try and sell any of this material to interested parties."

Carstairs shook his head sharply,

"I'm not talking about you gaining anything from the theft. I think I know you better than to think you'd do that. I'm referring to the harm that the loss of these papers will do to innocent people."

Bartido just looked at him for a long moment.

"Now I know you made the right choice with your life," he finally said.

"I'm serious, Bartido. You could end up doing a lot of damage with this little escapade. It's my fault, too. I was willing to accept your arguments that I should help because I couldn't find a counter to them, but this isn't what we agreed to."

"I can't believe we're having this argument over the business papers of a crooked advocate. You're the one who set me after these people in the first place, because you thought the spiritualists were a threat to their converts' souls. Doesn't that end outweigh—"

"No, it doesn't!" Carstairs cut him off. "If it ever did, that part was satisfied when you solved the question of the Proseccos' trickery. That was the vital issue from a spiritual sense. The rest of this is still a good thing to do, yes, but it's just stopping criminals from taking people's money—which is no different than what people will suffer from what _you_ did!"

Bartido winced as the point hit home.

"Besides, I never expected to hear a _magician_ argue that the Church should let the ends of fighting heresy justify its means."

"All right, now, _that_ was pushing it."

"How? It's the point you actually made, Bartido, and I wanted you to see for yourself how absurd it sounded."

There was another long silence, and for a moment Carstairs thought he might have crossed a line and permanently damaged their friendship. At last, though, Bartido just shook his head and grinned.

"No, what's absurd is me craning my neck to look up at you like you're up at the pulpit." He put down the stack of papers he was holding and pushed himself up to his feet. "That's better. And I hate to admit it, but you've got a good point. I mean, it wasn't even my plan to take anything from Argyle in the first place; I was just going to examine his documents there. I only have these now because everything went to pieces and I had to improvise."

"Then why were you defending it?"

"You mean, apart from the fact that I don't like admitting that I've bungled something, even if it was unintentional?"

"Yes, apart from that."

"I'm a spy."

"I know, but—"

Bartido shook his head.

"I know that you know the fact, but I don't think that you've thought about what it means. The entire point about spying is that I go out and do things that are considered dishonorable to accomplish my goals. That can mean lying to people to win their trust, or stealing, or performing acts of sabotage. There's a reason that intelligence work, even in wartime, is looked down upon by a lot of people."

"But that's different. A spy is working for his country."

"Right. What I'm getting at is that when I went to the Silver Star Tower, pretending that I wasn't from Albion, it was because I believed that getting the Philosopher's Stone for us, or at least making sure that _they_ didn't get it, was important enough that it outweighed betraying my teachers and the friends that I made there. It's like how I argued with you last night about breaking into the Proseccos house.

"The assumption is that my mission is more important than the things I might have to do to accomplish it. If that wasn't the case, then I wouldn't be sent in the first place as there'd be no justification for me to act, or at least that's the trust I put in my superiors."

"I...think that I can see some of what you mean. In the present case, I sent you on your 'mission.'"

"Right. Now, at first it was just a favor. I was doing it to help out a friend, and as a bit of a lark to fight off boredom. But two nights ago that started to change. The séance proved that something real was happening, not tricks with cheesecloth and papier-mâché. Then the next morning I learned from Guinness what the stakes were, and that finished the change. This wasn't just a game any more, and even if I wasn't aware of what I was doing, I had started thinking of the investigation like work."

"Except that it isn't."

"Right. The basic assumption of what I've done for Albion is that it's worth doing what's necessary, because it's for the sake of king and country."

"That sounds like a problematic assumption in and of itself," Carstairs said dubiously.

"Well, yes. Like the Philosopher's Stone; I'd much rather it be our side that has it if someone _has_ to, but I'm just as glad that it was destroyed. But the point is that there's still an underlying ideal there, our patriotism and loyalty. For this investigation, that's not there, so each moral question has to be answered on its own merits."

He jammed his hands in his pockets.

"Dammit, Michael, you _are_ good at this priest stuff. You've had me blathering on about all this more than I have in...actually, pretty much ever."

Carstairs grinned at him.

"Confession is good for the soul. We just know how to remind people of that fact." The grin vanished when he added, "That still doesn't get to the question of what you intend to do with all of these documents."

"Give them back anonymously, I suppose. The real trick will be leaving them in the building without being seen, because I'm not going to be caught with the goods. I'll have to keep them for a while, though."

"Why's that?"

"Because if I return them without the papers on the spiritualists' trust, then it becomes plain that that's the one the thief was after, which could lead right back to me. I'm not going to take that risk."

"Why? I thought your intention was just to examine the papers there in the office? Why keep them at all?"

"Maybe I shouldn't, but now that I have them, they're hard evidence. There's a difference between knowing something and being able to actually show it with documentary proof."

"You can't take that proof to the law, though. You'll be asked to show where you got it, and you can't do that without revealing that you stole it from Argyle."

"True, not in court, but there are other ways to use evidence like that. For one thing, putting the truth in writing is a good way to convince the victims that they _are_ victims. You know they won't want to believe it."

"Yes, that is a good point. When people invest their faith and trust in someone or something, it's hard to get them to change course. The more they believe, the more important it is to them, the harder it is. Like a tree putting down roots, the bigger it grows, the deeper it digs into the earth."

Bartido gave him a bewildered look.

"You might want to back off on the parables, there."

"It was just an analogy," Carstairs muttered defensively.

"Well, it sounded like a parable. Anyway, the other thing those papers are good for is putting pressure on the other side. Frankly, the _threat_ of using evidence may be more productive than the actual use." He paused, looking around at the mess on his floor. "Of course, this is all pretty hypothetical, since I haven't found anything yet. For all I know, there's nothing more incriminating than a laundry list."

He paused to yawn, then.

"Sorry, two late nights and two early mornings are taking it out of me. After I left you at the church, I stashed the equipment and documents here, and summoned an elf to patch up my hands, it was already after dawn. So I went ahead and returned the horse and carriage to the livery so I didn't have to pay an extra day's deposit, and, well, that's why it's two in the afternoon and I've only had three hours of sleep." He grinned, then added, "Now I understand what my grandmother meant when she said that she never rose before noon when she lived in the city. She probably didn't go to bed before five more than once a week."

"Then you ought to try getting some rest. This problem," he admitted, waving at the papers, "just isn't that urgent."

Bartido shook his head.

"I don't know that yet. Maybe it's not, but maybe time is more precious than I think. At the least, more time spent is more time in which Tobias Guinness might blurt out something stupid like, 'Even the Church is worried about those frauds; they sent that Ballentyne fellow to look into it!' to his parents or someone else. Hopefully, somewhere in this heap of paperwork is the last piece of information I need to understand everything that's going on. Then, maybe, I can sit back and rest a bit."

"I certainly hope so. This isn't worth your health, Bartido."

Bartido got another of his "Did you really just say that?" expressions. When Carstairs realized the reason for it, he was glad that his friend hadn't put it directly into words.

"All right, possibly that comment would have been more useful if I'd made it before you spent the night breaking into buildings, dealing with security wards, and confronting ghosts in magical combat."

"Slightly. But I'm glad you care. And frankly, I'd prefer to avoid getting impaled or arrested or haunted if I can help it. But that's the kind of stuff that happens when you're taking on magic-using criminals so all I can do is push on."

"Just be careful, all right?"

"I'll do my best. And I do promise that I'll figure out some way to return these papers, even if it's not right away."

"Good. Then I'll leave you to it."

"Thanks for checking up...even if it did come with a sermon. Occupational hazard for being friends with a priest?"

"If ending up an accomplice is an occupational hazard for being friends with a magician."

Grinning, Bartido shook his head.

"No, no, that comes from being friends with a _spy._ If a blob eats your shoes, that's a magician risk."

"I'll try to remember that."

"Good; we don't want to let Master Dundee down. He gave me a lecture on knowing my role yesterday, on not getting distracted. Of course, he said that while he had this cute, redheaded apprentice around, so he's kind of undercutting his own point there."

"I think we all know what your role is, Bartido."

The young alchemist's grin spread.

"That part never gave me any doubt."

~X X X~

Despite what he'd said to Carstairs, Bartido did not immediately dive back into the paperwork. Instead, he took the time to have luncheon sent up so that he could step back and relax a bit.

His landlady gave him several sharp looks at the state of the sitting-room, but held her tongue. She seemed to have a policy that her lodger's affairs were none of her business to comment on, so while she made no secret of how she felt about his sloppiness, she didn't presume to lecture him about it. As always, the food was indifferent, wholesome but bland.

"Ah, well, I'm working for the Church, so gluttony isn't appropriate anyway," he said philosophically, and polished off the food.

He reflected that in the papers he was sorting out and setting aside, there was probably evidence of more than one crime. The kind of man who helped organize one shady affair usually got up to more. For all he knew, he might be stumbling across things that made the whole spiritualism business look like child's play. And yet, the only reason he'd even care was if he needed any of that to pressure Argyle into giving him information on the Proseccos' trust. Which hopefully he wouldn't need.

Finishing his meal, Bartido polished off his tea, stood, and stretched. It was time to get back to work.

As he settled himself on the floor again, he found himself thinking about his exchange with Carstairs and how it had mirrored his talk with Dundee and his own thoughts afterwards. There was a lot to be said for knowing who he himself was, and where his priorities lie. But there was little virtue in a perspective that gave him tunnel vision. The whole argument over ends and means had left him feeling like a damned fool, and that was _not_ a feeling he embraced.

He was well into the second total hour of work on the documents when he finally got everything into some semblance of order. Admittedly, things had gotten rather badly disarranged when he'd tossed them loose into his pack with a bunch of burglary equipment. Also, he was definitely spending more time looking through things sitting in his own rooms with time and comfort available than he would have had while rifling a safe by lantern-light. Still and all, it made him realize how ludicrous it had been to expect to analyze everything during the break-in. Extracting information quickly from legal documents was the job of someone who knew what they were doing as well as what they were looking for.

Bartido amused himself for a moment by imagining Trenton Argyle trying to read and understand an Alchemy grimoire. Ego soothed, he stacked up all the irrelevant pages into one heap and set them on his desk under a paperweight to keep them from wandering away. Left with a sheaf that appeared to deal with the spiritualists, he settled into an armchair and began to read.

Boring didn't even begin to describe it.

The goal of legal phraseology was absolute precision. A contract should have one meaning and allow for no other, so that those involved would be aware of their exact obligations and be held to them if they failed. That precision and specificity, though, demanded long passages of text with exacting detail. In turn, that length could easily become a tool of obfuscation, with hidden clauses or twisted words turning the content on its head from the general understanding, with only the most diligent search capable of finding the needle of true meaning in the haystack of words.

Despite that, Bartido was not put off by the task. Although his superficial personality didn't suggest it, he was, after all, quite capable of poring over grimoires, memorizing obscure symbolism and studying the arcana of a field as complex and confusing as anything the law could come up with.

Which was what ultimately led him to the truth, by patience and concentration.

After reviewing the trust instrument, it became plain to him that although the stated purpose of the trust was to endow an institute for the study of spiritualism and mediumistic abilities, a purpose repeated numerous times throughout the document, the actual language governing the trustees' authority was much less restrictive. Phrases like "to advance the study of the relationship between the living and the dead" were open to broad interpretation.

_Hell, they could open an undertaker's and be within the terms of the trust._

It was an artful job of writing. There was enough limiting language that the trustees couldn't just freely loot the trust (something that even gullible marks might notice), yet not nearly as much as there ought to have been if the trust had been legitimate.

By itself, it might just have been inartful drafting, since advocates varied in skill like members of any other profession. Too much flowery phrasing suggested by true-believer clients with more enthusiasm than business sense, perhaps. But when that was combined with the necromantic Rune he'd found in the Proseccos' house, that went away in a hurry. This was, rather, fraud on a grand scale. Other documents included an investment ledger—who'd contributed how much, and in what banking establishments the funds were held. The Guinnesses were among the highest contributors, but the total was over thirty thousand sovereigns. Small-scale, this was not.

The key information, of course, was the identity of the trustees, the people who actually controlled the money. The Proseccos were not among those named, which Bartido supposed was good business. They could smile innocently and say, "See, you can trust us. We don't even have access to your money!" Actually, they wouldn't be so crass as to _say_ it, but the implication would be there.

The first two names were unfamiliar to him: Marcos Dewar and Abigail Petri. The third, though, was another story: Trenton Argyle himself. That, Bartido decided, was a mistake. Argyle might have been able to protest his innocence if he'd been only the advocate, but not when he was actually involved in moving the proceeds. Though apparently it took two trustees to disburse trust funds, so he wouldn't be alone.

So which of the others—or was it both of them? There had to be a way to piece together this con's structure. It couldn't be _too_ big—a criminal organization could be large, but there was a difference between hiding your activities from the law and hiding them from their own users. Smugglers or bandits didn't hide that they _were_ smugglers or bandits; they just strove not to get caught at it. With so much secrecy involved, every new person brought in was another potential leak. They'd want to keep the circle as small as possible.

And then he had it.

He was genuinely grinning as it all fell into place in his mind, the pieces neatly fitting together. It all made complete sense—who, how. Only the technical questions remained to be answered, and that wouldn't be overly difficult.

The grin became a laugh, though, when he realized that Carstairs was going to get his way about Bartido resting after all.


	14. Chapter 14

They heard the carriage well before they saw it. The fog was as thick and shifting as ever, moving through the streets like a living thing, and but for the pale gleam of lamplight reduced the buildings to nameless, shapeless shadows.

Bartido shifted his shoulders beneath his greatcoat. He generally preferred a lighter jacket, but he was glad this time that he'd chosen heavier garb. The night seemed much colder than the first time he'd called on the Proseccos, and the dampness of the fog was the kind that penetrated the bones. Will Laird hadn't brought a greatcoat and had given more than one shiver as they walked through the streets. His sister, with more forethought as suited the elder sibling, wore a hooded cloak over her dress and gloves for her hands.

The hackney emerged from the fog and came to a stop in front of the Proseccos' gatepost.

"It looks like this is your friend, the one we were waiting for," Victoria said.

"And a good thing, too. Maybe we should have taken a carriage."

"Well, if we'd known that it would be this cold and clammy, we would have."

"At least the two of you had the brains to dress for it. I tell you, the next time I hear Uncle Syrus complaining about how the sea air makes his joints ache, I won't be snickering up my sleeve at his crotchets, you can count on it."

"It's too bad, then, that you didn't leave your coat behind, too, Bartido, if the experience teaches compassion for your elders," Carstairs joked as he descended from the carriage.

"Somehow, I don't think God arranged tonight's fog to give us a lesson in humility, Michael."

"Not specifically, no, but there are lessons all around us; it's only up to us to see and learn them." He paid the driver, then turned back to the group, approaching as the carriage vanished into the fog.

"Why, you're a priest!" Laird exclaimed as he saw Carstairs's pectoral cross.

"Father Michael Carstairs," Bartido said, "curate at St. Helena's and, more importantly, a childhood friend of mine. Michael, this is Miss Victoria Laird and her brother William."

"A pleasure to meet you in person; Bartido's mentioned that he'd been introduced to these seances by you."

"Quite so," Will said, puffing out his chest a bit. "Ah, is that why you invited us all to make up a party of it tonight, Bartido?"

"Right; it only seemed fitting that you be here on the night I bring my friend along."

"Well, that makes sense. Share the experience and all, especially since it's like I brought him along as well, if at second hand." He paused, then went on to say, "Honestly, Bartido, I can't thank you enough. Vi's been ever so touchy about the idea of going back for another seance this past week that I was afraid I'd seriously offended her."

"Touchy? Now really, Will."

Bartido chuckled.

"You'd better watch out for yourself there, Will," he added. "Keep stuffing your foot in your mouth like that and you'll need Michael's help instead of mine to recover it."

Victoria laughed while her brother pulled a face.

"I'm still not quite sure what you're doing here, Father Carstairs, even if Will does stand in need of aid and comfort," she said. "Will tells me that the Church frowns on spiritualism, and in all honesty it isn't hard to see why."

"Please, call me Michael; you're friends of Bartido's, after all, and it will feel very strange to have you stand on ceremony all night."

"All right, Michael, then. But my question still stands, curious woman that I am."

"Well, I can't argue with you. The simple fact is that what most spiritualists say about ghosts and the afterlife does run counter to the Church's teaching."

"Stands to reason," Laird said. "'Course, you priests had your place. Can't run before you can walk, and all. People needed that helping hand to get them pointed in the right direction." He smiled benignly at Carstairs, as if he was offering a compliment rather than asserting that the role of priests in society was over now.

 _To be fair, he probably_ does _think it's a compliment._

"Be honest, Will; do you even know what that means?"

"'Course I do, Vi!" He looked a little hurt. "It means that people weren't ready to really understand things before. If the messengers of the spirit world came then, we wouldn't have known what to do. We needed the priests to teach us the basics, to set us on the right path. That's why mediums didn't start developing until now, because human minds weren't ready to touch the spirit world."

"That sounded...remarkably coherent, actually," Bartido said.

"Is that what Mrs. Prosecco teaches?" Carstairs asked.

Laird shot him a suspicious look.

"You're not trying to put together a heresy case, are you?"

"This is Albion, Will," Bartido pointed out. "It's not against the law to be a heretic _unless_ you're a priest, and that's only canon law."

"'Only' canon law?"

"They can't hang you or burn you at the stake," he said. "That's a fairly significant difference."

"So, since we can acquit him of malice aforethought," Victoria brought the conversation back to the original point, "why _are_ you here, Michael?"

"Well, it's true enough that I do not approve of such things. But Bartido is my friend, and he assures me that there's more to what the Proseccos are doing than playing carnival tricks on the credulous and gullible."

Bartido noted that Carstairs had chosen his words carefully, giving almost the opposite impression of his actual purpose without any outright untrue statements. He was kind of impressed.

"Good for you!" Will said enthusiastically, impressed for other reasons. "Glad to see an open mind in a man of the cloth!"

Carstairs's pained expression suggested that he wasn't entirely happy with the praise, though whether it was shame at deception, annoyance that his calling was assumed to be closed-minded, or the more semantic irritation that Laird was making "open-minded" a synonym for "credulous" wasn't obvious. It could well have been all three.

Bartido, for his part, was more interested in Laird. He'd put the young gentleman down as a casual follower, the type whose prime interest in the seances was in finding a slightly unusual evening's entertainment. Now, though, he was talking more like someone who was a true believer, though he supposed that could have been a reaction to the perceived threat of the priest. Men often would dig in their heels at criticism, after all.

Even so, it seemed a little extreme.

"Will's a bit more enthusiastic than I remember him being about all this," he mentioned to Victoria while the other two were occupied with their back-and-forth debate.

"I'm afraid so. The seance you and I went to with him seems to have made a strong impression on him."

"And on you?"

She smiled wryly.

"Let's just say that I'm happy with the answers that I found for myself and leave it at that, shall we? I still have to defend my brother's honor."

"That may take some doing."

Her eyebrows rose.

"Bartido Ballentyne, you're up to something," she concluded.

"I am not." Unlike Carstairs, he had no trouble with telling bald-faced lies.

Not that they were believed.

"Hm, and it's coincidence that even though we've met at various events several times over the past week, you didn't even mention spiritualism until last night?"

Which served to illustrate the problem of using intelligent people as cover for his own activities: they could figure things out and not just innocently follow their scripted roles.

"If any of this is going to hurt my brother, I swear that you'll regret—"

"There's nothing like that, I promise," he assured her at once. That was true enough. Unless Laird had some undocumented role in the con, such as being a shill—but that was something he'd already considered and dismissed as unlikely. So the only thing he was likely to suffer would be the shattering of his illusions, and most people would agree that that was actually good for him in the long run.

_Not that I've ever been fond of "it's for his own good" as an excuse for anything, but Will's just a sideshow when it comes to this business, anyway._

Victoria gave him a long, searching look as if trying to measure his sincerity. She must have been satisfied with whatever she saw, since she nodded once, then turned to where Laird and Carstairs were still continuing their discussion.

"Will, Michael, perhaps it would be more comfortable if we continued this inside?"

"What? Oh, oh, yes, thank you, Vi. Don't want to keep people waiting on us now, do we?"

They rang the bell, and were once again admitted into the house by the elderly butler. Just as on the first visit, Domenic Prosecco was waiting in the anteroom, together with the elder Guinnesses.

"Welcome back, my friends," the spiritualist greeted them, a warm smile on his sharp-featured face. "I am pleased to see you again."

"It was an amazing experience, one not quite like any I've had before," Bartido said honestly. "After something like that, it would be hard to just walk away without looking back."

"The wisdom of the spirit world is available to all," Prosecco answered. "Our explorations look into the fundamental mysteries of the universe, the chain of life and death and the existence of the soul. It is no wonder you would be drawn back. But I must say that it is not every day we welcome a priest at one of our seances, Father Carstairs."

Prosecco's knowledge of Carstairs's name surprised Bartido at first, until he remembered that they'd sent in their visiting cards, meaning that it not only wasn't a mystery, but not even an attempt to be mysterious.

"After what he experienced last week, Bartido thought that there was something here I needed to see. I hope that I am welcome?"

"All true seekers after knowledge are welcome here."

"God has given us the power of reason with which to experience His creation; I would not be true to my vows were I to set aside mine."

Bartido almost whistled in appreciation of that line, though he doubted Carstairs would enjoy the sentiment.

"Your open mind is a pleasure to encounter in a man of the cloth. I am sure that what you see and hear tonight will excite your curiosity and interest."

"I look forward to it."

"It was an experience," Bartido said. He'd slipped out of his greatcoat, and was standing with it over one shoulder, hooked on the fingertips of his right hand. "Honestly, I couldn't believe some of the things I saw at first. I'm indebted to Will and Victoria for thinking to include me, and I think you'll see some of the same astonishing things I did. But I hope you'll forgive me, Mr. Prosecco, for inviting another guest?"

"Oh, indeed? Another new seeker, come to learn what he or she may?"

Bartido shook his head.

"No, one who has been here before, a man who has been driven by the events he's seen to a new turn of mind."

"Indeed? How is that?"

"I believe that refers to me."

Heads turned to the robed figure of Nathan Dundee, who stood in the doorway.

"You have a way of making an entrance, Master Dundee," Bartido said with a smile. The smile was not returned, but instead drew a sharp look from beneath bristling brows.

"Say rather that I've lost patience with the necessity of social routines." His gaze turned to Prosecco. "I hope my presence won't cause any ill feeling. As young Ballentyne knows, I am fascinated by your proceedings and what I witnessed the last time I was here."

"May I ask if Tobias is here as well?" Mr. Guinness spoke up for the first time since Bartido's arrival.

Dundee shook his head.

"I am here of my own accord, not in line with anyone's agenda and most certainly of all not his. Forgive me if I speak bluntly, but that young man showed no respect for my findings simply because they did not suit his hopes."

Far from being offended, the Guinnesses actually looked relieved.

"On the contrary, Master Dundee, I am happy that our communion with the spirit world will not be disturbed by our son's rancor." He shook his head sadly. "It is a hard thing to admit, but the simple truth is that Tobias has strayed from the path, caring nothing for his spiritual well-being."

A new voice spoke up in response. "Don't worry; I'm sure that he just wants to help out his parents."

"You are late, Miss Vine."

"Sorry, Master. I was chatting with the butler while I gave him our coats."

"Do not dally," Dundee told his apprentice. "Our time is valuable, and we are making these good people wait on our pleasure."

"Yes, Master Dundee."

It was a shade embarrassing for the girl to be chastised in front of the group, no doubt. Dundee was probably quite a martinet as a teacher. On the other hand, the girl did seem like she could be a bit flighty, exactly the type to rub the necromancer the wrong way.

"And who is this charming young lady?" Prosecco stepped into the breach to smooth over any awkwardness.

"My apprentice, Miss Vine Petri. Ballentyne's invitation named her as well."

"Oh, indeed?" Victoria remarked dryly, arching an eyebrow.

"She seemed like she'd be more convivial company for Master Dundee than Mr, Guinness, plus she may be of use to him in making his observations." Bartido said it easily, almost as if he'd had the explanation prepared in advance. Which, of course, he'd had.

"I see." Victoria gave him a wry smile that wasn't exactly hostile but definitely not one that approved. He supposed it didn't help that Vine was another redhead that had a name starting with V; it was sort of like when two women wore identical dresses to a social event, only a more intimate duplication.

Since Dundee wasn't exactly inclined to do so, it was left to Bartido to make the introductions for Carstairs and Vine both.

"Thank you for having me," the girl told their host when Bartido finished. "It sounds amazing, the ability to contact the dead without having to rely on magic. I mean, Master Dundee is teaching me amazing things, too, but to talk to ghosts just by calling on them, I wouldn't have believed it if he hadn't seen it for himself."

"My apprentice speaks with more enthusiasm than care, but in essence she is quite correct. Had Ballentyne not invited me I would have contacted you on my own before much longer. The phenomena we experienced require further study and investigation; we stand at the gate of an entirely new era in magic."

"You flatter us, Master Dundee."

"Actually," Guinness spoke up, "the Proseccos are of the same mind as you are."

"Indeed?"

"Yes, for they, too, believe that the mediumistic qualities that Madame possesses should be studied and developed, and that others of the gift be sought out and encouraged in their abilities, much as you yourself as a magician have your apprentice. They seek to know how widespread these abilities are, how best to make use of them, and if there is any greater purpose in their development."

"You see?" Laird said. "It's like I told you. It's because we're ready to hear the messages of the spirits that we've now been given the ability to do it."

"It sounds like a worthy course of action," Dundee responded to Guinness. "But what I mean is to inquire into the magical aspects of it all, how what Madame can do interacts with the fundamental forces of Necromancy. There must be a connection of some kind."

Bartido managed to not laugh at the master magician's word choice, but he did share a glance with Carstairs. He was sure that in another few moments Guinness would start talking about the trust all on his own without any prompting.

Prosecco, too, seemed to have reached that conclusion, at least to judge by how quickly he intervened.

"Your attention is kind, and after we are through with tonight's explorations I am sure that we can make the time to speak of this further. But for now, let us focus not on the worldly and analytical side of things, but on the spiritual knowledge that the future offers us. We are gathered to enrich our spirits, not to indulge in the cold, scientific study of the method."

Carstairs frowned at this, his disapproval echoing his earlier remarks on God and reason. He did not speak up, though, suppressing his instinct for this theological debate in the face of his actual purpose for being there. Bartido was grateful; the last thing he wanted was for the evening to devolve into an argument over the arcana of religious belief, magical theory, and the false creed the Proseccos were dressing this con up in. Not only was it unlikely to be entertaining as it spiraled up into the more rarefied air, but it was guaranteed to be extremely unproductive.

"Very well," Dundee gave in for his part, "but I will want to speak with Madame and yourself later on at your earliest convenience. You have raised a number of significant questions that I feel deserve to be answered."

"I agree completely," Bartido put in. "I have to agree with Mr. Prosecco, too, though. After all, what we see and hear tonight may change what you're going to ask."

"Hm, that's certainly the truth."

The curtains parted, and Addeline Prosecco emerged from the seance chamber.

"I see that we are quite a spirited company tonight," she said, a flicker of a smile acknowledging and dismissing the unintentional pun in the same moment. Her husband introduced Carstairs and Vine to the medium.

"But come, all is prepared and we are ready to begin." Her eyes met Bartido's as they swept the group and he couldn't suppress the sudden, though groundless fear that she could see right into his soul to know what he was planning.

He met that gaze and, refusing to back down, grinned saucily at her, and had the unexpected pleasure of watching _her_ flinch in surprise.


	15. Chapter 15

"The midnight hour is almost upon us," Addeline Prosecco said as her husband was bringing in two additional chairs for the ninth and tenth guests. "The time is propitious for our circle."

"Is that a principle of Necromancy?" Bartido asked Dundee causally. "I'd wondered about that the first time we were here."

"I'm surprised that you cannot answer that yourself, Ballentyne, given that you studied under Gammel Dore."

"I studied Alchemy under Dr. Chartreuse Grande; the dead definitely are not my specialty. I know astrological influences can affect Glamour, but what about Necromancy? Does the world of the dead truly draw nearer at night?"

He was genuinely interested in the answer, but asking the question served a dual purpose. There was nothing like trumpeting his ignorance of the magic to be employed to help lure the trickster into a false sense of security.

 _Unless they think I'm shamming._ Which was a good reason for him to ask a _real_ question, because it made his acting much more convincing.

"As a matter of fact, there are such influences. It is not for nothing that a variety of common festivals have drawn up at various times of the year where the presence of the dead is acknowledged. These customs are rooted in the fact that, indeed, there are times and places where the souls of the departed are more easily returned to us. When you consider that pagan priesthoods often practiced ritual magic, the connection between those facts becomes plain."

"So Madame Prosecco's gifts functioning best at midnight fits with principles that we already know."

"Oh!" Vine said, clapping her hands as a thought struck her. "Then a seance might also be more likely to succeed at dawn or twilight, right, Master?"

"Very good, Miss Vine. I see you have been attending to your lessons. Yes, the symbolic times of transition are, together with the dead of the night, the times at which Necromancy is best facilitated. I have no doubt that at these times, Madame would be aided in her work by the conditions at hand."

"Assuming that you magic-workers don't spend so much time talking about it that it's three in the morning before we start," Laird joked. Dundee gave him a lethal glare, but the young man just grinned at him. Maybe the fact that Bartido was grinning too gave him support.

"No, you're right, Will. Mr. and Mrs. Guinness, Michael, and you and your sister are all here to experience a seance, not to hear a bunch of magicians stand around chatting about how much eye of newt goes into the cauldron."

"As a childhood friend of yours, I'm just impressed to see that you can carry on that kind of esoteric magical discussion," Carstairs put in. "Hidden depths, and all that."

"And this is why it never pays to keep near to people who knew you in your salad days," Bartido joked to Victoria even as he was drawing out his chair.

The convivial mood of the younger guests, though, did not remain as Prosecco drew the curtain closed and adjusted the lamp. High spirits were all well and good, but they all were sensitive to the atmosphere. Bartido and Carstairs, moreover, were preparing themselves for what would come next, the priest no doubt fighting nerves and Bartido feeling that excited anticipation keying up his senses. Neither emotional state was one that played well into casual joking.

"Please join your hands upon the table with those next to you in order to complete the circle. Father Carstairs, Miss Petri, you are new to our gatherings, so I tell you that you must not loose hands, for fear of breaking the connection to the spirit world. Our wills shall combine as one, and we shall reach into the dark, providing a beacon to draw the spirits near. Keep in your mind the image of those you seek to talk with, so that our hearts can call out to them."

"I understand," Carstairs said.

Hands were joined and the group's eyes flicked from one face to another, everyone coming together in their shared purpose—or so it seemed. There was a pregnant pause, as if all of them were together in taking a breath, and then Madame Prosecco began her invocation.

"We are reaching out, calling into the unknown future that lies ahead for us all. We are seekers after truth, looking into the divide between planes. Our hearts are open and yearning. There are those here who are lost and searching. Those in need of comfort, those who feel the sting of loss. We ask that you come to us, that our call reaches out to you who have passed beyond the veil, that you would hear and come to us for a time, that we might feel your presence."

To the best of Bartido's recollection, it was the same speech she had given the last time; either it truly was an invocation in the sense of a ritual spell, or the actress had learned her lines well.

 _Concentrate, dammit!_ he snapped at himself. He didn't know what was going to happen next, but he definitely didn't want any unexpected accidents happening like on the night of the break-in. He didn't need his mind wandering off to Lujei again.

Time seemed to crawl by as they waited, Madame Prosecco's further entreaties the only sound. Now, though, he understood the delay: it took time to empower the Rune beneath the table and more to summon the ghost. He was sure that if he could see it, the blue light would be dancing with the act of summoning.

Then, it appeared.

It was just a spark at first, then swelled into the dancing blue flame of a ghostly presence. It drifted forward, this time towards Bartido, as if in response to the force of his thoughts. He kept his mind focused, trying hard to not let himself waver off the image he had selected.

Then, the change happened: the expansion, the shifting from anonymous flame into distinct image. For the barest instant Bartido was afraid that he _would_ see Lujei again, but thankfully that did not occur. The ghost was male, looking not much older than Bartido himself, wearing a long coat with broad cuffs over striped knee-breeches and stockings. He had a long, patrician face, wore square-rimmed spectacles, and his hair was short on the top and sides but pulled into a queue in back. He looked around the table, then down at Bartido, pinched the bridge of his nose, and sighed.

"Seriously, Bartido, what have you managed to get yourself into this time?"

 _Why do all of my friends seem to use the same tone with me?_ Bartido couldn't help but wonder. Which only took on more humor when he thought about where this particular tone was coming from.

"Hello, Hiram," he said. "Glad you could join us."

The ghostly light shed by Hiram's presence added to the illumination from the lamp so that people's reactions were plain to see. The Guinnesses looked a little shocked and taken aback, probably at how casual Bartido was being about the presence of his dead friend. The Lairds seemed taken aback as well, while something wary showed in the faces of the Proseccos. He'd have guessed they were to canny to ignore when their game went off script and were likely to realize it wouldn't go well for them.

It was Dundee, of all people, who had the most dramatic response.

"Good God, that's Hiram Courvoisier, the third prince of—"

"Yes, as a matter of fact. You're well-informed, Master Dundee; the magicians at the Silver Star Tower didn't recognize him, except Professor Gammel, of course."

"Not as well-informed as I thought; I hadn't known that he was dead."

"I'm not dead," Hiram said. "Bartido's having his little joke. Which I trust properly amused him?"

"Oh, yes, definitely," Bartido said with a grin.

"But if you're not dead, then how do you stand before us as a ghost?" Victoria saved him the trouble of having to ask it himself.

"I am a ghost; I'm just not Hiram Courvoisier. I'm a random spirit called up and made to look and act like him thanks to a special Rune." He adjusted his glasses and glared at Bartido. "And just why are you having me tell them all this while you sit there grinning like a fool? You could at least do your own work."

"Wow, you really do sound just like Hiram."

"Of course I do. The image of Hiram is taken right from your own mind, so I act like you expect Hiram to act."

"What do you mean, from his mind?" Carstairs provided the next cue.

"Just what it sounds like. There's an advanced Necromancy Rune used to summon me. That Rune looks at the thoughts of whomever it's focused on and pulls the image of whom they expect to see from their thoughts, conscious or not. Bartido was sitting over there conjuring the image of me up in his head, and when Madame Prosecco turned the Rune on him, this is what he got."

"That can't be true!" Guinness protested. "Sara...we saw her so many times..."

"I'm sorry," the ghost said, "but that wasn't her. It was just your memories of her, put on like a costume and acted out for your benefit."

"But the things she said, about the afterlife, our memories don't include that."

"Not your memories of the living Sara, no," Bartido agreed, "but they're what you expected the ghost of Sara to say, after the Proseccos had primed you in advance with all their talk of higher planes and spiritual fulfillment."

"They didn't say anything about fulfillment," Hiram corrected pedantically, which seemed to Bartido like he was taking the whole mental-expectations things too far. "Rather, they—"

And with that he was gone, winking out of existence like a candle being snuffed out. _Or like a familiar being dismissed, which is more to the point._ Just as he'd sent away the ghost that had imitated Lujei, so Addeline Prosecco had silenced the false Hiram's accusations by brute force. She probably should have done so earlier, since claims coming from the spirit's mouth sounded more believable than anything Bartido might say on his own, but surprise played a part. A con woman had to think fast, but being able to ad-lib on the fly with words didn't necessarily lead to the same skill with magic.

_I got farther along than I expected to, so let's be happy and move on._

Domenic Prosecco, though, clearly had those quick reflexes of the confidence trickster; even as the ghost was vanishing he had leapt to his feet, fist crashing down on the table in his anger.

"How dare you? Filthy potion-peddler, using your tricks to try and spread lies about our work! Have you no humanity? Think of what you are doing to these poor people, using their daughter's death as a weapon to defend the shallow boundaries of magic and mystery." He waved a hand towards the Guinnesses. "Or perhaps," he added, his gaze sliding towards Carstairs, "you do _his_ work, as the lapdog of the Church."

"Eh? What's this?" Laird spoke up. "You mean, you're a Church spy, Bartido? Sent to smear these good people so the priests can keep selling salvation?"

"Be quiet, Will," his sister hissed.

"But really, Vi, it's outside of enough that—"

" _Shut up,_ Will."

Despite the tense situation, Bartido couldn't help but grin at their antics.

"Hiss at him all that you like, it will change nothing; this little sneak stands revealed for the spy he is."

"The only sneak here is you," Carstairs snapped, "pretending to bring back the dead and reunite people with their lost loved ones just to take their money."

"You just want to keep them as docile sheep. We expand their minds, show them what truly lies ahead."

"You had best be very sure of your ground, Ballentyne," warned Master Dundee.

"I am, Bartido spoke up for the first time since the ghost had been dismissed.

"Then I would suggest, Mr. Ballentyne, that you offer proof of your claims beyond a stage show." Addeline Prosecco was much calmer than her husband, but no more yielding.

"I like that idea. Michael?"

Bartido pushed his chair back and stood up, Carstairs following his lead. Bartido wrenched away the tablecloth, tossing it away behind him, then grabbed the edge of the table.

"Let's have a look underneath, shall we?"

"Wait, what are you doing? Stop this at once!"

"It's a little too late for that, Prosecco. Your wife did ask for proof, after all."

The gathered circle scurried out of the way, looking on as Bartido and Carstairs lifted the table, tipping it up, around, and down on its top, its centerpost pointing up at the ceiling.

"And what, exactly, was that supposed to prove?" Prosecco sneered.

"It proves that someone's a quick thinker, for one thing, to have dismissed the Rune in case I did exactly, well, this. But there's a little problem with having to keep your magic hidden. I'd like to draw everyone's attention to the pattern of inlays on the bottom of the table. Kind of fancy, given that people don't get to see this side of it unless you've got a housemaid who's really enthusiastic at dusting."

Dismissing the Rune meant that there wasn't a glowing blue pattern on the underside of the table to make Bartido's point. But it also meant that the inlaid pattern was unoccupied, free for any magician to claim.

Which Bartido proceeded to do, sending mana into the wood, following the design as already laid out.

"Now honestly, my Necromancy stinks. Ten to one Vine, here, is better at it and she's only an apprentice. And even in my field, I couldn't draw a Rune upside down beneath a table that I'm sitting at. This Rune, though, was built right into the table, so that any hedge-wizard could use it with a little practice."

With that, the Rune came alive, shining with ghostly light. It continued to glow and pulse as Bartido savored the shocked gasps from the Lairds and Guinnesses for a moment.

"Any questions, Prosecco? Or do you have a better explanation for how _your_ seance table just _happens_ to have a Rune on it that summons ghosts _and_ grants them the ability to imitate the impressions of people drawn from a target's mind?"

He tucked his hands into his greatcoat's deep pockets, striking an insouciant pose.

"I didn't think so. The fact is that you and your clever wife have managed to, with some talented stage-dressing, turn the most basic summoning in all of Necromancy into a convoluted scheme to steal tens of thousands of sovereigns from your clients."

"Now stop right there, young man," Edward Guinness spoke up sharply, his spirit rallying from the series of blows Bartido had dealt it. "I don't know what sort of foolish ideas you have, but we've given no money to the Proseccos beyond our nominal donations for their work in these seances. The endowment funds are held in an independent trust over which they have no control, in order to insure against precisely the sort of behavior that you claim."

"So your son told me. Except, of course, that it's all as fake as their mediumistic powers. Held in trust? Absolutely. Beyond their control...well, tell me, Mr. Guinness, have you ever met the so-called trustees, beyond, Argyle, the advocate? Didn't think so. Because if you did, you'd know at once that you already did know Marcos Dewar and Abigail Petri under somewhat different names."

 _Oh, they didn't see that one coming,_ Bartido thought, seeing the shocked looks pass across the Proseccos' faces.

"Tell me, Vine," he said conversationally, "is Dewar your actual father, your mother's current paramour, or something else? He's too quick to run his mouth to be a random flunky." He swung his full attention to Dundee. "That's a lesson, by the way. When you're carrying out a scheme that involves the use of creative and original breakthroughs in Necromancy, go the extra mile and hire another person to be a trustee. The added risks and expense aren't anything next to the problem of having someone with the same name as your apprentice be implicated in a criminal scheme that demands the kind of magical expertise very few people can offer. But really, what was it all for? Did you have some plan to undermine the Church's influence with the gentry?"

Silence hung in the air for long moments as Dundee and Bartido stared at each other. It was one thing to claim that the spiritualists were frauds, but accusing a man like Nathan Dundee of being involved in a confidence scam was on a completely different plane. The onlookers seemed to be waiting for Dundee to swat aside the accusation, dispose of it like shooing a fly as if the two things were equally trivial annoyances.

Even Carstairs seemed to be expecting that and Bartido had explained the whole thing to him before planning out what they'd do tonight. It was just that absurd. _Bartido_ even felt it; there was a reason why he'd suggested a motive rooted in the politics of magic.

The one person who _didn't_ show any sign of appreciating the gravity of the situation was Dundee himself. His bushy brows narrowed, almost merging into one, and he snorted derisively.

"I expected better from you, Ballentyne," he began, and Bartido prepared himself for the denial to come.

Only, it didn't.

"Manipulate high society? Weaken faith in the Church? This is Albion, boy. There's no need to go chasing off inquisitors and witch-finders here; your time in foreign parts has soured your judgment. I don't need freedom from oppression to carry out my researches. I need money, and a great deal of it."

"That's it?" Bartido could hardly believe his ears. "That's what all this was about? Ghosts and seances and all of it, because you wanted more money for research?"

"As an alchemist, I would think that you would be more appreciative of the point. Your specialty is the most expensive one of all. But that just illustrates what I said to you before, you think like a constable, not a magician. You are content to learn your Alchemy from grimoires and let others do the hard work of breaking new ground. But have you any idea of the sacrifices those great minds must make? Bah!" He struck his cane on the floor sharply. "Look at this. I am forced to take private commissions to make a few hundred sovereigns at a time, with no appreciation from the public for the importance of my work! Yet these credulous fools"—he took in the genuine seance guests with a sweep of his arm—"and those like them will pour over thirty thousand out to support something that doesn't even exist, simply because it offers them easy answers to the complex questions of grief, loss, sin, and redemption! Stupid people who lack the basic common sense to know that nothing meaningful is ever that simple! They deserve what they get, and let better minds spend the resources they'd otherwise waste."

A part of Bartido was actually sympathetic. The fact that the Guinnesses and others like them had been willing to give huge sums to support a plainly dubious cause despite both magical knowledge and religious faith denying its validity did not win them much approval.

The fact that they had been deliberately deceived by cunning tricksters, including an inventive use of magic as a mechanism, with their own grief carefully exploited, made Dundee's self-righteous dismissal of them rather less convincing.

"You're right," Bartido said. He waited a beat for deliberate effect before continuing with, "I do think like a constable instead of a magician. For example, right now, instead of the good you could do with all the money your scheme brought in, I keep getting caught up in how you lied to people, conned them, and took their money under false pretenses. That's a crime, and on a scale that if you'd stolen it by courage and daring instead of tricking grieving parents like a worm, you'd get stories told about you being a great master thief and become a legend in the broadsheets. Though you'll probably get that part anyway. It's pretty unusual for a master magician to be put on trial like this. Well, not for black magic or trying to take over a kingdom or something dramatic like that, those are normal enough, but it's not every day you see one charged with being a cheap moneygrubber. It'll be like locking up Archmage Calvaros for selling fake love potions."

Dundee snarled at him.

"Then you persist in this ridiculous display? So be it; I am left with no choice."

He stamped his cane on the floor again, and a Rune blazed to life before him.


	16. Chapter 16

The time for talk being through, Bartido acted like lightning. His hands whipped out of his pockets, clenched around the necks of the two bulbous flasks he'd been carrying there. He'd been half-convinced that Dundee wouldn't go quietly, and the thought of facing off against the master magician had led him to make preparations.

He was fairly sure that Dundee had let him go on as long as he had out of pragmatic confidence: accusing the Proseccos was one thing, but the necromancer had wanted to know just how far Bartido had gotten in his investigation. It would be fairly stupid, after all, to reveal his involvement if Bartido didn't know about it. He'd been cautious, too, sketching out the Rune with the tip of his cane even while listening to Bartido explain his deductions, but he'd still waited until Bartido had openly threatened him with arrest to kindle it, rather than making a surprise attack.

It was the confidence born from mastery, of knowing that he vastly outclassed Bartido in the magical arts. Any general welcomed the chance to be able to fall back on overwhelming force.

Bartido hurled the two flasks in quick succession. Like any magician of his ability, Dundee was warded against physical attack. The flasks shattered, smashed by concussive force from his wards—and spilling out their contents.

Alchemy wasn't like the other kinds of magic. Among other things, it was impossible to enchant a talisman to call up a previously summoned and bound familiar because Alchemy familiars weren't summoned at all, but created outright. It was impossible to take a shortcut for a path that didn't exist.

That didn't mean, though, that an alchemist anticipating a fight couldn't create familiars in advance. Each of the ceramic flasks had contained a blob, the most basic life form Alchemy could create. They had no fixed form, being just a ball of viscous green goo. The blobs hit the floor, flattening slightly on impact, then swelled back up and spat clumps of their substance at Dundee.

Even as the blobs were acting, Bartido was already driving his left elbow into the belly of Vine Petri. He flinched a little as he did it, but Dundee hadn't apparently considered warding his apprentice to be a worthwhile use of time and mana, and the girl wasn't skilled enough to do it herself. She was still choking for breath and recovering from the shock when Bartido's uppercut made her teeth click together and she went over onto her back from the blow.

"Bastard!" Prosecco shouted in rage and launched himself at Bartido. He figured that settled the question of whether he was Vine's father; the kind of man who played con games on elderly couples didn't tend to get offended over an enemy's lack of chivalry. His science, however, did not match his anger; he launched a wild roundhouse swing that Bartido easily weaved out of the way of before snapping a quick jaw to his face and following up with a couple of rapid body blows.

The blobs' attempt to use their ability to slow Dundee by gumming up his movements had failed due to his wards, but Bartido had one turn on Prosecco, the sticky goo taking the spiritualist almost completely out of the fight.

Dundee, however, was definitely not out of the fight. When the blobs' attempts had failed, he'd retreated to the furthest wall of the room, and in a quick movement he twisted the knob off the top of his cane. A shake of his hand spilled glittering silver nails out onto the floor and from each sprang a phantom. A half-dozen of the lethal ghost knights suddenly stood between Bartido and his quarry.

"Did you really think that you were going to stop me with an alchemist's tricks and your bare fists? Please. There is a difference between confidence and folly."

The phantoms surged forward. Like the golems in Argyle's building, the blobs were helpless against the Astral ghost-knights. Dundee's Rune was shining as it brought on another summoning, while Madame Prosecco was busy scribing a Rune of her own.

"Yeah, actually, I did."

Bartido snapped his fingers, and the curtains were flung open. Four fairies swooped into the room, firing their bows at the squad of phantoms. The ghostly warriors whirled to meet these new opponents, their instinct for battle momentarily overcoming their master's order. The ceiling was low; the fairies could not escape the swordsmens' range and their agility was no proof against the surprising speed the phantoms showed. Regardless of Glamour's advantage against Necromancy, the master's powerfully enhanced familiars were too much for the fairies to handle.

One fairy was struck dead-on by a flaming sword, swatted from the sky like an insect. It vanished, retreating to Faerie to avoid its death; serious injury released it from the summoning contract. It was plain that the others would soon follow.

But the fairies were not the only familiars that Bartido had brought with him—or rather, that Carstairs had brought in his carriage after Bartido had summoned them. The homunculus was slower, having to totter along on its stumpy legs instead of flying, but as soon as it entered the room it unleashed a bolt of psychic energy that exploded in the midst of the phantoms, crackling and sparkling.

Enhanced they might have been; Dundee's phantoms could probably have brought down a dragon in under a minute. That was no defense against the psychic storm. The exorcism was complete in seconds, and all six phantoms had vanished.

In the next instant, a phantom of Bartido's own appeared from the overturned table. The Rune there was, after all, basically a Hades Gate, despite the tinkering with its ghosts, and Bartido had set it to summoning a ghost knight right from the first.

With a snarl, Dundee hurled the silver ball to the floor. Not only had it contained the phantom nails, but it seemed the ball was itself a talisman. Two more familiars appeared, their form ghastly. These were not immaterial ghosts, but in human shape, withered corpses with the skin stretched so tight over the bones to make them seem skeletal. They wore tattered rags, their arms bound behind them, the nooses by which they had died dangling still from their throats. They were skullmages, magicians executed long ago for their practice of evil magic, and they still retained their arts.

Bartido's fairies swooped at the skullmages, firing arrows, but they were not in time. Chittering bones rattled, the mages' jaws sagged open, and they spat out bolts of pale blue magic. The phantom was a sitting duck; it was destroyed before it could do anything at all.

A moment later, Dundee completed his own summoning. His Rune had been Acheron, and the entity summoned was not another undead spirit but a Charon, the ferryman that carried the spirits of the dead to the afterlife.

Despite its fearsome appearance, the Charon was not quite the grim reaper that it appeared. As a ferryman, its primary purpose was to transport other familiars who didn't have its freedom or speed of movement, bearing a squad of demons, even dragons, into the heart of the enemy formation unhindered by walls or barricades. But they had no attack of their own, other than to discharge the life force of one of their passengers as a bolt of mana, sacrificing a familiar to deliver a devastating attack.

Behind it, one of the skullmages used its ability to astralize targets to render a fairy vulnerable to its companion's magic. That left only two fairies, and it was likely they wouldn't endure long enough to carry the day. Dundee knew it, too; the Charon reached back with its scythe and touched one of the skullmages, bearing it aboard its boat. There was no point in ferrying it anywhere; that skullmage was ammunition, like a crossbow bolt with Bartido's name on it that the Charon could bring wherever he tried to run if he couldn't stop it.

The Charon was Astral; another psychic storm could hurt it badly, but Bartido wasn't sure if the fairies could finish it off while dealing with the skullmages, and the homunculus didn't have the mana to fire more than one. He didn't like his chances in a casting duel with Dundee, to say nothing of what Madame might come up with.

He made his decision.

"Michael, stop her!" Bartido yelled, pointing at the furiously scribing medium. He sent mana to his own Rune, trying to call up another phantom, and at the same time issued a command to his homunculus. The haze of clairvoyance settled over the room, linking the physical realm to the flows of mana, and making Astral creatures vulnerable.

The instant the clairvoyance took effect, the blobs fired, their sticky goo splattering the now-physical Charon and inhibiting its movements.

But that would only slow it, not stop it.

Bartido sprang forward, darting alongside the struggling Charon, brushing past the skullmage, and launched himself into a flying tackle, praying as he did that Dundee's wards had been spent staving off the thrown vials and the blobs' subsequent attacks. His shoulder hit the older man in the midsection, his arms wrapped around Dundee's waist, and he drove the master magician into the floor.

Adrenaline sang in Bartido's blood as he barely even took conscious notice of his escape from harm. He was already in motion, rearing up above Dundee, left hand on the necromancer's breastbone, holding him down, while his right fist raised and fell, driving like a hammer full into Dundee's face with fury and desperation. Once, twice, three times he hit the old man. If the necromancer was still conscious when the Charon managed to turn itself around, one thought would be all it would take to end Bartido's life.

But after the second punch, Dundee's eyes had rolled up in his head and he'd sagged limply to the rug, so that the third blow was just icing on the cake. Bartido sighed with relief; that should give him time to destroy Dundee's remaining familiars and Rune before he woke up and issued new commands, and the spiritualists weren't likely to—

He hadn't quite finished the thought when pain exploded through the side of his head, just behind the right ear, and he was knocked sprawling off of Dundee's body.

"Bastard!" Prosecco screamed again. Dazed, Bartido watched him step over Dundee, dripping goo and slime from the dissolving remnants of the blob's attack. "Do you know how long we've worked on this? Nearly a year's worth of planning and preparation, plus six months of patient effort, building up our clientele and reputation! And you... And now you come along and smash it all to bits in a week?"

Some part of Bartido's mind knew that he should be doing... _something_. But _what_? He couldn't focus, couldn't quite grasp the thought that he needed through the haze of pain. He saw Prosecco draw his foot back, knowing what was coming but unable to do anything to stop it.

The pointed toe of the spiritualist's boot slammed into Bartido's gut, and pain exploded through him. He curled reflexively around the injury, and saw the other man raise his foot again, this time no doubt for a brutal stomp.

The only thing that stopped him was Victoria Laird hitting him with a chair. The blow fell on Prosecco's left side and sent him staggering; he barely got his foot down to catch his balance. As the heavy chair sagged to the floor, though, he came back, backhanding her across the face and sending her reeling away.

Victoria's gasp of pain was like a dash of cold water through Bartido's mind, driving out the haze. With everything he could gather, he lunged upwards, burying his fist in Prosecco's solar plexus. The spiritualist fell back, gagging, and though Bartido's head swam when he tried to get up from his knees, he didn't have to. The ability for coherent thought was enough; he commanded the nearest blob to act, and once more Prosecco found himself splattered with sticky, gumlike ooze. He tried to counterattack, but his movements were so slowed he looked like a street performer putting on some kind of act of a man in slow motion. Even that was quickly put to a stop when Will Laird stepped up and knocked him flat.

"That's for hitting my sister, you damned fraud!"

Looking over at his last functional adversary, Bartido saw that Carstairs had wrested the wand away from Addeline Prosecco, and had her sit back down in the chair. He considered cracking a joke about the Knights of the Nascent Dawn crusading for God against sorcerers, but his head hurt too much to bother.

_Besides, he'd probably just point out she's a necromancer and miss the point entirely._

He chose instead to look over at Victoria, who was rubbing at the red mark on her cheek.

"Are you all right?"

"I'll be fine."

"Once we get these people into the hands of the law, I can summon an elf to heal that for you. I know at least that much Glamour."

"I'd appreciate it. It doesn't really bother me, but it might make people ask some awkward questions if I attended a dinner party with a bruised face."

"It's the least I could do, after you saved my neck."

Victoria smiled at him.

"Really, it's not a problem. I have a younger brother, after all, so I'm used to pulling boys out of scrapes."

Slowly, Bartido got to his feet. He only swayed a little, which he supposed was a good sign.

"Consigned to 'little brother' status, then, am I?"

"Well, maybe not _quite_ like that."

"Please, Bartido, must you stand there flirting at a time like this?" Carstairs cut in.

"You're right. Will, could you go outside and tell Michael's driver to go to the magistrate's court and fetch a group of runners to make the arrest? I'm not handing these folks over to the local Charlies, that's for certain."

"His driver? But his carriage left an hour ago."

"He should be right up the street. Where do you think all those familiars came from? I put a Fairy Ring on the carriage roof, a Laboratory on the floor, and summoned them before I went to join you. Then Michael brought them along, so I'd have a little surprise ready for Dundee and his cohorts."

Without Dundee to direct them, the last familiars had been easily mopped up. A blob's gum-drop had slowed the last skullmage enough so that the fairies could finish it off without incident, and the summoning of Bartido's second phantom had finished in time for it to help deal with the Charon, a task made easier by the homunculus recovering enough mana to use another psychic storm.

"And he was willing to do all this? That's a lot to ask from a jarvey."

Bartido shrugged.

"He was paid for his trouble. And I doubt many jarveys would argue with a carriage full of a magician's familiars."

"Good point." Will headed for the door.

"Victoria, could you help us? We need to get these four tied and ready for the police so we don't have to fight them all over again, but Vine and Madame are both necromancers and we need to make sure they aren't carrying any talismans they could use to effect escape, so we need to remove rings, hairpins, coin-purses, really any personal possessions. I think it would be better if another woman made the search."

"Chivalry didn't stop you from knocking Miss Petri out."

"I'll do what I have to do to win a fight against an enemy, and I'm not going to treat a magician as if she's less dangerous just because she's a woman. That doesn't mean that I'm not going to follow common decency if I'm allowed to."

"I see. Well, in that case, I'd be glad to help. After all, it'll keep your hands off this henna-haired witch."

The look of contempt Victoria gave to the unconscious Vine was the icing on the cake for a very satisfied Bartido.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Fuyu no Sora for the Knights of the Nascent Dawn. Hopefully we'll get to read that story someday!


	17. Chapter 17

It was nigh on half-past-four in the morning before the constables from the local magistrate's court arrived to take Dundee and his associates into custody, witness statements were given, and the miscreants were led off in shackles. The law tended to take magically-talented prisoners very seriously, indeed. The head of the constables gave stern warnings to Bartido and Carstairs that they should be at the court at nine sharp to give a full account of the case to Sir Patrick Harp, the sitting magistrate.

"An' don't be late, mind. His Nibs don't like waitin', an' it sours his belly somethin' awful as he has to do it for somethin' that might come back an' bite his arse."

With that, the four prisoners were dragged away, leaving the remainder of the seance party behind, together with the two elderly servants, whom as far as any inquiry had turned up were no more than they appeared. Before they took their leave, Bartido turned to the Guinnesses.

"I want to apologize to you both for putting you through all of that. I admit, I wanted to make sure that you could see the evidence with your own eyes and hear any confessions for yourself, but having you stand by as a magical battle took place in front of you...I'm sorry for that."

Both of them had been badly shaken by the events, as was only natural; the combination of shattered illusions and direct physical danger would have upset anyone.

"You should apologize," Mrs. Guinness told him flatly. "It was the most terrifying experience of my life."

"But we also want to thank you," her husband softened the blow. "It wasn't easy, but it had to be done. Painful as it was, throwing our time, our care, and our wealth away on frauds and charlatans was not to be borne."

"I wish it hadn't been necessary."

"As do we. But at least now we can seek out an honest medium, a genuine seeker after truth."

"You mean, you're going to keep on with spiritualism?"

"Of course," Mrs, Guinness told him as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Maybe to her, it was. "Just because one apple is sour doesn't mean one gives up eating fruit, young man."

"The knowledge of the next plane, the peace and wisdom to be found there, it is the most important goal we can strive for," Mr. Guinness added. "We will find a way to communicate with Sara again."

Surprised as he was, Bartido had no desire to make an issue of it. Maybe Carstairs might be ready for a philosophical debate, but he had no taste for them at any hour, let alone the edge of dawn.

"Then I'll just wish you good fortune in your search."

He watched their carriage vanish off into the fog.

"I can't believe it," Bartido said. "The whole thing was shown up right in front of them. How can they still believe?"

"It doesn't make sense," Will Laird agreed.

Carstairs looked solemnly at his friend.

"If someone claimed to be performing miracles by a saint's relic and it turned out to be a fraud, would you stop believing in God?" Bartido's shock must have showed, to which the priest went on went on, "Whatever they're looking for, they've got faith in _it_ , not in the Proseccos. They were tricked _because_ of their belief; they weren't tricked _into_ it."

"I feel sorry for them," Victoria said. Bartido supposed that meant he'd been right about her that night they'd walked together. Whatever she'd been after at the seance, it wasn't the same thing as the Guinnesses were seeking.

He couldn't help but think of his own mentor, Dr. Chartreuse, and how the leonine alchemist had called upon an angel's spirit and incarnated it in a mortal body in pursuit of holy wisdom. Or how Nathan Dundee had been so driven to plumb the secrets of the true magic of the dead that he'd lowered himself to concoct a scheme to bilk innocent dupes to get his hands on more funding. Were they really any different than the Guinnesses? Three different paths, but all to the same end—the hidden truths of what lay beyond this life.

He broke the silence with a sudden laugh.

"And I just told myself I didn't care about philosophical debates!"

"Come again?"

"Sorry, just thinking out loud."

"Well, it's not philosophical, but I've got a question," Laird interjected.

"Yes?"

"As I follow it, Master Dundee made a magical Rune for them that let Madame summon up any old ghost, point it at a person, and it would look and act like whomever that person was thinking of."

Bartido nodded.

"That's it exactly."

"So the Guinnesses saw Sara because they were trying to see her, right?"

"Right."

"And that fellow who showed up tonight, he was a friend of yours?"

"Is a friend, Will. Hiram isn't really a ghost."

"But he acts like you expect him to act, isn't that right? You can't make him read lines off a script?"

"That's also right," Bartido said, a little surprised that Laird had grasped the complexities. The surprise obviously showed, to judge by what Laird said next.

"You _did_ go over it with the runners, and I'd like to think I've at least got a better grasp of all that than some undereducated thief-taker. Anyway, my question is, if you couldn't tell the ghost what to say, how did you get him to explain what was going on?"

"Oh, that?"

"Actually, I'm curious about that, myself," Carstairs put in.

"It is a good question," Victoria said.

Bartido laughed.

"Now you're ganging up on me? But really, it wasn't a big problem. Michael, you especially ought to know the answer."

"Yes, well, I'm sure you'll be more than happy to tell me why I'm being an idiot."

"I need to work on being less predictable. But anyway, I'm an alchemist. I knew that the Rune was responsible for the ghosts and I was pretty sure that it wasn't calling up specific people." Not only were there all the logistical problems but once he'd had a chance to think it over clearly his experiences with the pseudo-Lujei made it fairly obvious. Even if the Rune had made it possible to summon Lujei, it was absurd to believe it could do so at no more cost in mana than summoning a random spirit without magical ability. Nor could it have bound her to his will so that he could dismiss her, not without a ferocious struggle. If it were even possible to bind her at all, which it probably wasn't. "But there was no way that I was going to figure out exactly what it did do unless you gave me a year and a library."

"But you did figure it out," Laird said.

"No, I asked someone who actually had a clue to do it for me."

It was a good thing he'd burgled Argyle's offices on the same night as he'd searched the Proseccos' house. Without seeing the name Petri on the trust document, he probably wouldn't have come to suspect Dundee's involvement and would have brought the Rune right to its creator for analysis.

Carstairs sighed.

"You're right, I should have known."

"Exactly. Since I sent it to Hiram—hopefully my Foreign Office contacts will forgive me using the diplomatic courier system to get it there by dragonflight—of course the Hiram in my own mind would know everything I know about the Rune." He was fairly sure it had been Ms. Opalneria who'd done the heavy lifting as far as the research went, but Hiram was Bartido's actual correspondent.

"Well, then, I suppose that finishes matters."

"Except for whether Argyle will turn rabbit, and if he doesn't run if he'll be able to brazen it out in front of a court. But even if he does escape justice, it won't hurt anything so far as the spiritualism con is concerned."

"I appreciate all this work you've done for me, Bartido."

He shrugged.

"I was glad to do it. Most of it was actually fun. Though, while I may have put a few fakers out of business, so long as there are people like the Guinnesses, spiritualism doesn't seem to be going away."

"Helping people being tricked by others, that's your purview. Helping those who are tricking themselves..." Carstairs made an airy little gesture. "Well, that falls to my own calling, to try and shepherd people who have wandered astray back onto the sure path."

Carstairs chuckled, a self-deprecating little sound.

"But after what you've been through tonight, I don't think you need to be subjected to spiritual ruminations."

"Oh, I don't know. Only a priest would consider a sermon of any length to be repayment for a favor instead of reason to incur another one."

"In light of the hour, I'm not even going to hold that against you."

"Where's the fun in that?"

"Precisely."

"If the priests are going to be that tricky, then devils are in for a rough go of it."

"Exactly the point, I think."

Carstairs's grin almost qualified as a smirk.

"But in all seriousness, the least I can do is offer to stand a friend for an early breakfast. The parish housekeeper makes excellent ham and eggs, and her coffee is good enough that the rector and I are likely being dragged down into the vice of gluttony from indulging in it."

Bartido perked up.

"Well, now—" he began, but he was interrupted.

"Leading an innocent magician down a sinful path? You're slipping, Father," Victoria teased. "But don't worry, Bartido will remain steadfast in the face of your temptation."

"I will? I'm usually fairly weak where good coffee is concerned."

She linked her arm with his.

"Well," she said, eyes sparkling in the pre-dawn light, "it helps that you have a better offer."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading, everyone! I wrote the first chapter of this story back in 2010, then set it aside until the middle of 2013, when I was searching for some idea for something I could write to help me with my "every Sunday a GG chapter" project. This story caught my eye as I was flipping through my folder of notes and unfinished drafts, and just took off. It was fun getting to write about Bartido, who's a very different protagonist than Lillet, not just in his attitudes but also in his power level. I hope people won't hold it against me that I broke my general rule against canon/OC romance pairings...I just figured that Bartido being something of a James Bond in-universe, that if he was going to get a big solo adventure then there had to be a Bond girl too!


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